


Serenity (It's My Life)

by elfin



Series: Intersections [2]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:15:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26291749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: John attempts to lay some demons to rest by visiting the place of his interrogation
Relationships: John Sheridan & Michael Garibaldi, John Sheridan/ Jack Maynard
Series: Intersections [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899340
Kudos: 1





	Serenity (It's My Life)

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE HEED THESE WARNINGS  
> This story follows the episode, Intersections In Real Time. It includes descriptions of past and remembered torture, mental and physical abuse and injury. There are brief references to object rape. Some of this is canon, some of which is based on methods used for coercion. Please DO NOT READ THIS if you’re not comfortable.  
> There are explicit descriptions of loving, consensual sex. All intimate interaction in the present is consensual and loving.  
>   
> AUTHOR’S BABBLE  
> This is a complete re-write of part 2 of For A Day Of Laughter, Serenity. The original story was written back when S5 of Babylon 5 was airing.  
> Note that there are substantial changes between this version and the original, including the pairing. Sorry. The original story can be requested directly from me via email.

**SERENITY (IT'S MY LIFE)**

Captain Jack Maynard sat back as General Ryan sat forward.

‘You’re sure about this?’

‘I am.’

‘Well, given what you went through aboard the Agamemnon at the end there, I can’t say I’m surprised. But there is one last duty I’d like you to perform for us before you go. Feel free to say no, it’s… more of a favour, I suppose. But I think you’re the right person for the job.’

*

Captain John Sheridan stepped out of the shower, dried off and shrugged into a dressing gown, towel-drying his hair so it stuck up every which way until he ran a comb through it. Stepping through into the bedroom he saw the ‘message waiting’ report on the Babcom screen and issued an instruction to play. He smiled when he saw Jack’s grinning face appear on the screen. He’d been waiting for this.

‘Hey, Johnny. Sorry, everything takes longer than you think it’s going to. But I’ve done it. Handed in my resignation this morning and General Ryan accepted it. I’ll be docking at Babylon Five in two days so I hope you and Susan have managed to find somewhere for me to live.’ He looked happy. ‘They’d better be taking care of you, Swampy. Can’t wait to be back. I miss you. I’ll see you soon.’

‘End of message.’

*

Stephen also had a message waiting for him, also from Jack. It explained the last job Ryan had requested he undertake before he left. 

‘I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not to mention this to him,’ Jack finished. ‘I’ll trust your judgement on this one. Sorry to dump it on you, Stephen, but only you and he know if he’s up to this. The last thing I want to do is put him through it all all over again and it not be beneficial. Let me know before I dock. I’ll be there in two days.’

*

When John had gone back to work, so had Michael, taken on by the station’s captain as Chief of Security. Again. Demoting Zack, who didn’t seem to mind one iota. 

It took him a day to remember which parts of the job he loved, and which he hated. Breaking up fights, stepping into bar brawls, investigating thefts and attacks, sorting out the shit that happened when a million life forms were thrown together in a metal tube, that was the easy bit. 

The politics, that was the part that made him want to scream. And following the rebellion, the politics were insane. 

EarthGov didn’t want Sheridan running B5, and just enough time had passed that the constant, quiet rumblings in the government back home had started to gain support. Time had dulled the memories of those not directly involved in Clarke’s vendetta against the EarthForce captain. To the charges of brutality, they pleaded ignorance. To the charges of conspiracy, they pleaded innocence.

But President Luchenko was right to be wary of simply removing Sheridan from command. He had a legion of followers, a station of staff loyal to his every word, as well as captains in charge of very large ships with very large guns, ready to fight for him at a moment’s notice. 

Things were changing, and as usual John was right at the centre of it all.

Michael pressed his hand against the security scanner beside the door to the captain’s quarters, and spoke his name. The voice identification was an addition layer of security, extra protection.

Stepping inside, he called out, ‘John?’ 

‘I’ll be out in a second.’

Smiling to himself, Michael made his way through to the kitchen. From his jacket pocket he took the small packet of fresh cocoa beans that he’d managed to import and flipped open the lid on the coffee grinder. Caffeine was definitely not on the food plan Doctor Franklin had drawn up - Sheridan was having enough trouble sleeping as it was - and coffee was right out, so John’s old grinder had been put to a different use recently. 

‘That smells incredible,’ John told him, leaning over his shoulder to see what was going on.

‘I thought you’d appreciate a hot chocolate before the staff meeting.’

‘You’re amazing, Mike.’

He turned, and touched the jumper John was wearing. It was a deep blue colour, setting off his eyes and doing bad things to Michael’s libido, even though it knew full well where that path led now.

‘Is this one Susan brought for you?’ 

John nodded. Throughout his recovery, one of the problems was his body’s inability to properly regulate its temperature. He was cold most of the time. The station’s air conditioning kept the whole place at a regular twenty degrees, too low for him to ever get warm. If he sat too close to an air vent it was liable to bring on a bout of shivering so intense it would leave him hurting for hours. Susan had managed to import five hand knitted jumpers made from Pak’marian Leopole wool, as soon as the first supply lines had reopened. It was supposedly the softest, warmest yarn could buy and Michael couldn’t disagree.

‘That’s entirely too touchable.’

‘Hands off.’

He smiled and reached for two mugs from the cupboard. ‘Good shower?’ John huffed, and he knew what that meant. ‘Stop trying to force it.’ 

‘It’s been months since…. I should be ready to explode.’

‘I don’t think it works that way.’

‘Maybe not, but it would be good to know everything’s still working.’

Spooning out the chocolate, adding hot water, Michael put one of the mugs into John’s waiting hands. ‘Have you talked to Stephen?’ His only answer was a grunt, and he’d learnt that was code to drop the subject. ‘Is there any word from EarthGov?’

‘No. They’re taking their sweet time about making a decision.’

‘They’re in stalemate. They can’t sack you, it would look bad and they can’t risk another uproar. They don’t want to leave you in charge because you’ve set a bad example. They need to find a compromise and that’s just as difficult as it sounds.’ 

‘Yeah, well. I might just have had a better offer.’

*

They went through the usual agenda at the early morning staff meeting. Stephen listened attentively and watched Sheridan as he was prone to doing. John was making good progress along the road to recovery. His injuries, for the most part, had healed. There were still toxins and psychotropics in his organs and muscle tissue. He still had nightmares, he tired easily and his diet was restricted, partly by the slow recovery of his digestive system, partly by the violent physical reactions he had to certain smells. But, all in all, Stephen was pleased with what they’d achieved. 

When it got to the last point on the agenda, Any Other Business - the part of the meeting Susan and Michael regularly used to have a general moan about the unimportant stuff - John linked his fingers on the table in front of him and leaned forward.

‘Delenn’s asked me to be president of the new Alliance.’

The reactions around the table weren’t all that surprising, but it was Michael who spoke first. ‘Seriously? Why don’t they just put a PPG to your head and pull the trigger?’

John flinched, and Stephen watched him pull the long sleeves of his sweater down over his hands. It was a habit, a tell. He was still so fragile. How the hell could they expect this man to lead an alliance of alien worlds? Still, he glared at Michael until he reluctantly apologised.

Only Susan said, ‘Congratulations,’ and when he thanked her, genuinely, she asked, ‘Do you want to be president?’

John’s shoulders dropped, and front he was presenting to the world fell away. Elbows on the table, head in his hands, he looked directly at Stephen. ‘Do I?’

Stephen’s heart threatened to break anew. Physically, he was doing okay. Psychologically, while the sessions with Dr Osaka were helping, he was a far from it. 

The doctor sighed softly. ‘Only you can really answer that. Are you well enough? No. Are you strong enough? Yes.’ He could feel Garibaldi’s eyes boring into the side of his head. ‘But you only have so much strength. It’s up to you where you focus it.’

‘What did you say to Delenn?’ Susan asked curiously.

‘I said I’d think about it. That I needed time. I just wanted to tell you all, in case she mentions it. Now, is there anything I should know about?’

Back to AOB. Michael complained about several skirmishes in DownBelow between groups of Pak’mara and some of the locals of Brown Sector. Nothing serious, nothing his team couldn’t handle. As he was speaking, John got up and went over to lean against his desk. Michael didn’t miss a beat; this was something they were used to.

‘Okay, let me know if you need additional help with it. Susan?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Stocks of Zol grapes are down by sixty percent and the chef at Fresh Air is complaining he can’t make Cantalopian Fruit Salad without them. The air conditioning in section B of the marketplace was blowing out the scent of rose blossom this morning, making some of the more nasally sensitive aliens nauseous and, according to the owner of the M-View Café, putting some off their food. One of the Narn supply ships that docked overnight took out a single sensor at the edge of the stabilisers and the maintenance bot sent in to fix it malfunctioned and took out another two, as well as a Moray unmanned test probe. Two of the Oncara delegation have requested shackles be installed in the floor of their suite for the duration of the An’Ka’Ra festival.” She smiled at their raised eyebrows. “And the barman at Earhart’s is claiming the water supply to his bar is slightly cloudy causing his Acktorian Mists to turning grey.’

John stared at her. ‘What colour are they supposed to be?’

‘Blue. Oh, yes, one final thing; Ms Lochley has lodged a formal complaint against Mr Garibaldi after he allegedly changed the arrangements of her conference with members of EarthGov from Blue sector to a small, and I quote, ‘pig sty’ in Green sector. She says the room reeked of Pak’mara shit. She wants to know what you’re going to do to punish him.’

John glanced at Michael. ‘Tell her I’ll spank him later. As for the rest of it, get onto the market council on Zolaria, order another delivery of Zol grapes and tell Eric at Fresh Air to place a rolling order as long as his fruit salads remain popular. I heard about the air conditioning problem; it was a prank by one of the maintenance crew working on the vents. His shift manager has promised me it won’t happen again. The Moray test probe can be replaced and the sensors fixed. No on the request for shackles, but if they want other suggestions tell them to visit IronHearts in the Marketplace. Lastly, there’s nothing wrong with the water supply to Earharts, the barman’s using stale lemons.”

‘Excellent. And what do I tell Ms Lochley?’

‘I told you what to tell Ms Lochley. I’ll put it in writing if you want me to.’ She shook her head, hiding her smile. ‘Stephen?’

‘Whereabouts in the Marketplace is IronHearts?’

The meeting adjourned.

Michael and Stephen stayed put, watching John and Susan leave, deep in conversation, probably about grapes, or maybe oranges. 

‘Can he still have orange juice?’ Michael asked, out of the blue. 

Stephen looked at hm, bemused. ‘I guess. He hasn’t asked specifically. If he’s drinking it then, sure. Might be a bit acidic for him now. Why do you ask?’

‘He used to love oranges. I’m assuming the pacing thing, not being able to sit for very long, is tied into how we found him on Mars?’

‘That's my best guess. Although whether it’s physical or psychological, I’m not sure.’

‘Huh?’

‘I mean, whether he experiences muscle cramp, if muscle memory prompts some sort of momentary flashback, or it he has a panic attack if he sits down for too long. He did say that they kept him locked in that chair for most of the time, letting him up only when they knew he was going to be sick, and there was definitely evidence of that, so… could be a combination of all three.’

‘Fuck.’ Michael sighed. ‘What about the thing he does with his sleeves?’

‘I’m not sure. Whether he just gets cold hands, or whether it’s something more, something about not being exposed in any way. He told me when he tried to put his uniform on, he couldn’t fasten the buttons of his shirt at his throat?’ 

Michael nodded. He'd been there to witness John's frustration with himself taken out on innocent crockery. ‘Same with the jacket collar coming too close around his neck. It was never going to keep him warm enough anyway. I told him it didn't matter, no one was going to question his authority just because he wasn't wearing the right clothing. Not sure he was convinced but he didn't have a lot of choice. I think he sees it all as personal weakness.'

Stephen gave a sigh of his own frustration. ‘I’ll be happier when Jack gets back. John's definitely better with him around.’

‘Yeah.’ 

He glanced at Michael. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. Jack’s... a wildcard, but like you said, John’s happier with him around.’

Stephen got to his feet. ‘I take it you didn’t know about the president job?’

‘No.’

‘You’re obviously against the idea.’

‘I think he might as well paint a target on his back.’

‘He already has a target on his back. He’s had one for two, three years? I don’t think it bothers him.’

Michael looked up. ‘You don’t think he’s… suicidal?’

‘You asked me that once before, remember?’ Michael nodded. ‘No, I don’t. Everything he’s lived through, fought to survive, I think if he wanted to die, he’s had plenty of chances.’Stephen’s link chirped. ‘Franklin, go.’

‘Stephen?’ It was Susan’s voice. ‘Could you come up to C&C? We’ve got a situation.’

*

They ran. Or rather, Michael ran and Stephen tried to keep up. When they reached C&C, everything was quiet. There was no screaming, no shouting, no emergency. John was sitting on the metal floor, back to the railing that ran the perimeter of the walkway, knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, sleeves pulled down. Susan was crouched next to him, one of her hands rested over John’s.

Stephen joined them while Michael hung back once he realised what the situation was likely to be.

‘What happened?’

Susan answered. ’I’m not sure. We were talking, stepped in here and John just… froze. He was gripping the railing. I don’t think he was… here.’

John raised his head. ‘I am now.’ 

They both apologised. ‘Sorry. How are you feeling?’

‘A bit… dizzy. Slightly sick.’

‘Do you know what happened?’

‘One second I was with Susan, the next I was… back in the bar.’

‘It sounds like a flashback.’ 

‘It was so vivid. I thought… I was back there.’

Susan sat back to let Stephen get close. Slowly, he lifted one of John’s wrists away from his legs and slipped his hand into his sleeve, far enough to press his fingers again the pulse point, silently counting. ‘Is it the first time you’ve experienced one?’

John nodded. ‘Before now, it’s always been nightmares, those night terrors, I’ve been asleep. This was…. I stepped from the corridor into the bar. I was right back there, and I knew what was going to happen….’ His voice faltered.

‘Do you know where you are now?’

'Yes.’

‘Is your vision clear?’

‘Yeah. But my ears are ringing.’

‘We’ll just stay here for a few minutes.’ John nodded in agreement and rested his forehead on his knees. Stephen looked at Susan, then around at the command staff who were alternatively glancing at them in concern, and carrying on with whatever it was they were doing. ‘It might be an idea to tell your team what to look out for. They don’t need to do anything beyond putting in a call to you or me.’ 

She nodded her agreement and got to her feet, squeezing John’s shoulder gently as she went to quietly check on the crew. Michael took her place at Sheridan’s side, protecting him a little from view.

After a while, John lifted his head and dropped it back against the railing. His eyes looked clearer and his pulse was back to normal. Stephen let go of his wrist.

‘Okay?’

‘Yeah, thanks. Sorry.’

‘Don’t you dare apologise.’ He helped John to his feet, Michael rising too. ‘Have you had anything to eat this morning?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Get something, it’ll help with the light headedness. I’m sure Michael wouldn’t mind buying you breakfast.’

'It would be my pleasure.’

Leaning on Stephen for a minute more, John seemed to finally find his balance and nodded. 

*

‘Okay?’ Michael had asked at least three times since they sat down.

‘I’m fine,’ John assured him.

‘Good.' He changed the subject. 'You know, winding Liz up isn’t going to help you win any popularity contests with her.’

He laughed. ‘Says the man who’s re-arranging her meetings in the alien sector.’

‘She deserves it.’ He glanced at John’s plate. ‘Are you going to finish those?’

John shook his head and watched Michael clear his plate for him. ‘Are you eating for two or something?’

‘Hey, I like them. No point in wasting them.’

Breakfast over, they thanked Eve and stood, stretching. ‘What’s your morning like?’

‘Meetings. Three in a row. I’d forgotten how dull being captain of this place can be.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be job sharing with Susan? Can’t she do the boring meetings?’

‘That wouldn’t be-‘ Suddenly, John doubled over in pain. ‘Oh, Gods….’ 

Michael reached out, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘John….’ He felt the deep breath in and thought he would stand up, but in the next moment he was on his knees, arms hugging his stomach, tears in his eyes.

‘Shit.’ He hit the link. ‘Garibaldi to MedLab.’

Stephen answered immediately. ‘Michael, what’s going on?’

’We’re outside Eve’s in the Zocalo. You need to get here fast, something’s wrong.’

*

As soon as they reached MedLab 1, Stephen starting issuing orders. ‘I need an IV in, I need his stomach pumped and the contents analysed, and I need a full blood workup now.’

He prepared a hypo and injected it into John’s upper arm, he was too far gone to feel it anyway, and it was a relief when the fast acting drug knocked him out. 

John was moved from the trolley onto a bed, equipment brought in to perform the procedures the doctor had ordered. Stephen took Michael by the arm and ushered him out. ‘You don’t want to see this. Trust me.’

‘What the hell’s happening?’

‘You tell me. You’d just had breakfast?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then maybe his food was poisoned.’

‘That’s impossible. I had the same thing he had.’

‘So they got to his plate, not yours.’

Michael shook his head. ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. He doesn’t eat a lot in the morning. I hoover up whatever he doesn’t finish and I’m fine. I literally had what he had.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about liquids?’

’We shared a pot of tea.’

‘Okay. Wait out here.’

He waited for what felt like an eternity. On the other side of the glass, the med team slid a tube carefully down John’s oesophagus and pumped out the contents of his stomach while a nurse took a blood sample. 

Almost an hour passed before Stephen came back out holding two pads. 

‘Doc?’

‘His blood work is showing the same levels of toxins and psychotropics that were present when we rescued him on Mars.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘We found high levels of the same drugs in his stomach.’

‘I told you….’

‘It wasn’t the food. I did a scan and I’ve found three metal devices; one in his stomach wall, a second in the wall of his upper intestine.’

‘You said you found three.’

’The third was in the stomach contents we pumped out. I need to open him up and remove the remaining two immediately.’

‘What are they?’

‘I think they’re delivery mechanisms.’

*

Susan squinted at the two tiny metal discs in the transparent pot Stephen was holding up, each no more than half a centimetre across.

‘They must have been in something he was fed while he was on Mars. When we got him back, his stomach lining and intestinal walls were shot. We found them beneath the new tissue.’

‘How come they weren’t… evacuated?’

‘Evacuated?’

She glanced at him. ‘Why didn’t he pass them? You know…’

‘Oh. They’d fastened themselves in place with four tiny clamps, like hooks, inside him.’

‘Why?’

‘Presumably to do exactly what the third one did. To release the chemicals into his system.’

‘But why now?’

‘Well, I’ve got a theory about that. I think someone remotely activated one of them. These two, they’re in tact apart from the clamps which we had to burn off.’ Susan winced in sympathy. ‘They’re still sealed, their payloads are still inside.’

‘Are you telling me that someone aboard this station deliberately set one of those things off inside him this morning?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fucking bastards. When I find whoever did that-‘

‘-Michael will kill them for you.’

Walking over to the observation window, she asked, ‘Are you absolutely sure there are no more of these still in him?’

‘Positive. I’ve run a deep, thorough scan head to toe. These were the only two things inside him that didn’t belong there.’

‘Good.’ She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. ‘How is he?’

‘We’re waiting for him to come round from the anaesthetic. He’s going to be sore for a while. I’ve put a central IV line into his chest for the anti-toxins and counteragents. That’s also how he’s going to need to get nutrients for a week or so, but I doubt he’ll feel like eating.’

She gazed through the glass at where John lay, surrounded by tubes and monitors, Michael sitting at his side, holding his hand.

‘He’s been through enough, Stephen.’

‘I know. And there’s something else.’

*

Michael got the morning’s security recordings from the cameras surrounding the Zocalo and started a small team looking at the footage, looking out for anyone acting suspiciously, even though he knew it was a long shot. If someone had remotely activated the delivery of drugs into John’s bloodstream, he was going to find them, and rip them apart.

He checked in with Stephen every twenty minutes, but John was still unconscious after the surgery and once he woke, Stephen had warned he’d be drowsy and likely very sick. 

Tracking down whoever had done this was a more productive use of Michael’s time than sitting in MedLab seething.

*

John came round from the anaesthetic early that afternoon. The monitors had already alerted Stephen that his patient was waking up, which was lucky because it meant he was almost but not quite prepared for John opening his eyes, struggling onto his side and throwing up over the edge of the bed.

A nurse was there in a second with an empty bowl, leaving it with Stephen and returning a moment later with cold water, a glass and a cloth. 

There was nothing to come up, but John continued to retch, spitting out stomach acid, tears in his eyes and sweat beading on his forehead. Deciding he couldn’t ride it out without serious damage to his stomach, Stephen reluctantly administered an anti-sickness shot and waited, pressing the cold cloth to John’s head, murmuring reassurances.

When it was over, a clear up crew made light work of cleaning the room. Stephen helped John sit up and take a few sips of water to ease the burning in his throat. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked exhausted.

‘That was the anaesthetic mixed with the psychotropics,’ Stephen explained. ‘I’m sorry, I had no choice but to get you into surgery.’

‘Why?’

He told him about the devices they’d found inside him, assured him there were no more left and apologised for not finding them sooner. 

‘What’s the damage?’

‘You’re going to be sore from the surgery. There are two incisions in your abdomen, you have minute burns and tearing in your stomach and intestinal walls, as well as stitches inside and out. The drugs delivered by the device this morning may cause additional nightmares, flashbacks, nausea, tiredness….’

‘So, no change then?’

Stephen wanted to hug him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘This isn’t on you. None of it.’

He opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. Maybe later. ‘Try to rest. I’ve put an IV in your chest. Try not to pull it out.’

John didn’t need ask what for. They’d been down this road before. He closed his eyes and after a couple of minutes he was fast asleep.

When he next woke, it was late. MedLab was quiet. Stephen had finished up his paperwork and was checking John’s progress, taking a blood sample for analysis.

‘Haven’t you only just given that to me?’

‘I have, so you won’t miss it, will you?’ He wrote on the vial and set it aside. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Rough. Like I’ve been hit by a truck.’

‘Feeling sick?’

‘No, don’t worry. I’m sorry about that, earlier.’

‘Don’t apologise for something you had no control over. I knew that was going to happen. I just didn’t realise it was going to happen so fast.’ 

‘Is Michael okay?’

‘He’s fine. He was here. He’s been in and out, and when he hasn’t been in, he’s called to check on you. They’re trying to identify whoever did this to you. Those things we found inside you have remote activation within a narrow range. Whoever set it off it this morning had to be close by. They’re going through the security cam footage.’

‘But why now? The war’s over….’

‘I don’t know. There are still factions out there who hold you responsible for much of what happened, you know that as well as I do.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, looking so tired. ‘This is never going to end, is it?’

‘Not if you make yourself a target.’ Stephen hadn’t meant to say it, but it was what he’d been thinking since John’s announcement during the staff meeting. 

‘You don’t think me being president of the Alliance is such a great idea.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Better or worse than saying on as captain of B5?’

‘Honestly, I’d be happier if you found a quiet little farm on a remote planet somewhere and retired, kept sheep or cattle or anything.’

‘Aww, Doc, you really do care.’

‘Every time I have to… put you back together, there’s a little less of you. I do care, very much, and seeing you hurt, seeing you in pain, having to add to that pain just to help you… it kills me.’

With some effort, John put his hand on Stephen’s. ‘Right now, if I was to give it all up, I’d go insane. Having that much free time to spend in my own head, I’d probably end up blowing my own brains out long before Lorien’s life-force runs out.’ Stephen caught his breath but he should have known that John had worked it out for himself. ‘I’m not stupid. I know what they did to me on Mars shortened my life. I didn’t ask you about it because I don’t want to know. I think if I knew when I was going to die, everything I did would seem… pointless.’

‘Nothing you’ve done, nothing you ever do, is pointless. Out of all the people I know, you are the least pointless.’ It at least raised a smile, and he thought - now or never. ‘John, I heard from Jack.’

‘Me too.’ Now there was a genuine smile. ‘He’s resigned, retired, whatever they want to call it.’

‘I know. But he told me something he hasn’t told you. They’ve asked him to do one last thing for them.’ The expression in John’s eyes made him backtrack, but also confirmed a couple of things he’d been wondering about. ’Nothing risky, nothing dangerous. It’s okay. He’s been asked to lead a clean up operation at Clarke’s facility on Mars, recover any bodies left there, download copies of the records, then blow the place sky high. Jack left it to me to decide whether or not to ask you if you want to go with them.’ He watched John’s face carefully. ‘My immediate response was no, that it’s the last place you should go back to. But I spoke to Deloris, and she suggested maybe it might help you to see it in the cold light of day. She thought you might be able to banish one or two of the nightmares. Now, this is completely your decision. You say no, that’s the end of it. Jack will go, spend a day with the team sifting through the rubble, he’ll be back within a week and he’s done.’

John moved his hand, reached for the sleeve of the warm top they’d dressed him in after surgery, pulling it down and curling his fingers into the ends of the arms. Stephen made a mental note to ask Dr Osaka about it.

‘So I’m asking you, and whatever answer you give, there’ll be no more discussion about it. Obviously if you want to go, he’ll be there and so will I. There’s no rush. Take your time, think it over.’ John nodded, but that was his only answer for the time being. ‘I’ll let you get some sleep.’

He lifted his head. ‘Stephen, there is something…. It’s… kinda personal.’

‘You know anything you say is confidential. Not a word of it leaves this room.’

‘I can’t… It won’t…’ He sighed. ‘I can’t get an erection.’

‘That’s not hugely surprising, John. It’s an entirely normal response to the levels of abuse you’ve been subjected to. You have to give yourself time to heal; your body and your mind.’

‘How long, Doc?’

‘As long as it takes.’ He did have one other thought. ‘Don’t feel you have to answer this, but are you trying on your own, or with someone?’

‘Michael and I sort of… tried. Once. It didn’t go well. Mostly it’s been on my own.’

‘Okay. So don’t take this the wrong way, but you may have difficulty getting aroused when you’re with the man you associate with your abduction and torture.’

John’s protest was immediate and predictable. ‘I don’t hold Mike responsible for any of it.’

‘No. You don’t. And you shouldn’t. But that’s not what I said. You remember him putting that tranq on your hand in the bar. You remember him sitting and watching as you were taken down. Knowing now that he wasn’t himself, that he was under Bester’s influence, doesn’t change the very real connections in your mind.’

‘So… what do you suggest?’

‘I suggest you stop trying to force your body to do something it’s just not ready to do. Relax. Try massage. Enjoy some intimacy without racing for the payoff.’ He smiled, amused at the wry look John gave him. ‘And feel free to ignore this one, because I’m probably out of line, but… isn’t there anyone else, other than Michael, you could maybe try with, when you are ready?’

John nibbled on his bottom lip, smiled a half-smile, and after some hesitation, said, ‘Probably best I ignore that one.’

‘That’s fine. Like I said, out of line. Get some sleep. If you’re okay in the morning, I’ll release you. But you’re back on medical leave for at least two weeks, and no arguments.’

‘Don’t worry, doc. I don’t have the strength to argue.’

*

John was dressed and ready to leave by the time Stephen got in to MedLab the following morning. Michael was with him, sitting up on the bed, talking quietly. 

‘I see someone’s desperate to get out of here.’

‘You know me.’

‘I know you hate this place. Thank you for waiting for me.’ He glanced at Michael. ‘Give us a few minutes?’ 

Garibaldi jumped down off the bed. ‘I’ll be right outside.’

To John, Stephen said, ‘Lie back.’

‘Doc….’

‘I need to satisfy myself that you’re okay to leave. You had surgery yesterday.’

‘Fine.’ He lay back and didn’t complain while Stephen examined the small, stitched incisions, checking for internal swelling. 

‘Does it hurt?’

‘It’s a bit sore. A six, maybe seven.’ Stephen stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘What?’

’Are you actually telling me the truth?’

‘It isn’t the first time.’

Stephen smiled. ‘I don’t really want to give you any more drugs if I can help it.’

‘See! What’s the point of telling you it hurts when you won’t come up with the good stuff even if I do?’ 

He laughed. ‘I’m sorry. Think you can live with it?’

John nodded. ‘I’ve had worse.’

‘I know.’

Stephen checked the IV line and swapped the empty bag for a smaller, fresh one that he taped in place under John’s sweater.

‘I want to see you every four hours so I can change this. Don’t eat anything and only drink water until I tell you it’s okay to try other liquids.’

‘Understood.’ John sat up, pulled down his sweater and slid from the bed to his feet, steadying himself before standing.

‘Have you had a chance to think about what I said last night?’

‘Which part? Mars, or my erectile disfunction problem?’

‘Mars.’

The humour vanished from John’s face. ‘I’ll let you know later.’

*

John had promised Michael he would stay in his quarters and rest. He’d probably promised Stephen too, at some stage over the last twelve hours. But Michael had work to do, and staying put on his own was just going to to drive him crazy. He needed to take his mind off the pain in his stomach. So he went for a walk. 

It was the lull between notional breakfast time and a notional lunch. There were far more aliens on Babylon 5 than humans, but the station still operated on the basis of a standard Earth day.

The Marketplace was quiet, and John stayed on the edges of it, able to fool himself for a short time that he could disappear into the fabric of the station. He glanced at a neon sign here, a candle in a bird’s skull there. Bric-a-brac and cheap tat sold amongst expensive jewels and precious artefacts. He tried to remember if he’d ever bought anything here and couldn’t, didn’t think he had.

He was so lost in the sights and sounds and smells that he practically walked into G’Kar.

‘Captain, I am sorry. I was miles away, as the humans say.’

‘No, it was my fault. So was I.’

‘I heard you were taken ill yesterday. Is everything all right?’

He shook his head. G’Kar was one of the ones who wanted the truth, could cope with the truth, when he asked after John’s health. ‘It’s a long story. I’m not okay. But I think I will be.’

‘Well, that part at least is good to hear. Delenn informed me that she’d asked you to do us the honour of becoming president of the Alliance.’ 

He nodded. ‘I haven’t made a decision-‘

‘No. That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to apologise. When I heard you were ill, I realised how much pressure we’re putting you under by asking. For that, I am sorry. Such a decision cannot be made lightly, and I know the last thing you need is further stress.’

‘It’s… okay. Really. But there’s another decision I need to make first. And I’m worried the consequences of making the wrong choice there will last longer than taking a job I’m not ready for.’

‘I’m sure you’ll make the right choice, Captain. You always seem to.’

‘I hope so. I really do.’

*

Susan activated her link. ‘Ivanova, go.’

‘He’s in the Marketplace, talking with G’Kar.’ Michael watched their captain through the trappings of several stalls, staying out of sight. ‘He’s fine, Susan. When he moves I’ll catch up with him, but let’s leave him for now.’

*

A little while later, John left G’Kar’s company and headed back to his quarters. Just that short time out had exhausted him. He was hurting more than before and he was slightly worried the walking had pulled his stitches. If that was the case, Stephen wasn’t going to be happy with him.

A few steps out of the Marketplace, Michael fell into step beside him.

‘Captain.’

John glanced at him with a small smile. ‘Why do I feel like this isn’t a chance meeting?’

Michael shrugged, the picture of innocence. ‘I have no idea. Odd thing about coincidences; sometimes they don’t feel like coincidences at all.’

‘No. Strange, isn’t it?’

‘It really is.’

They walked in silence for a minute or so, until John leaned sideways slightly and pressed his arm against Michael’s side. ‘Thanks.’

Michael nudged him in return. ‘No thanks needed. You know how Susan worries.’

‘I don’t think she’s half as bad as you and Stephen.’ He hesitated. ‘Mike… there’s something I need to speak to you about. Can you come by after your shift?’

‘Of course. Should I be worried?’

‘No. It’s just about a decision I need to make. It would be good to talk it through with someone.’

They arrived at Sheridan’s quarters. ‘In that case, I’m all yours. I’ll see you at seven. Until then, do us all a favour? Stay here. Get some rest.’

*

Michael had imagined the decision John was referring to was the Alliance presidency. When he heard about the proposed Mars trip, he felt sick.

‘Why would you even be considering it? It’s madness.’ From the sofa, John was watching him pace.

‘If I go back, I can stand in the cells where they beat me unconscious. I can pace in the rooms where they had me shackled to that chair, open the doors that were locked behind me. I can walk the corridors I was pushed through strapped to a trolley.’

He seemed calm enough but the idea terrified Michael. ‘Don’t you think there’s a chance you’ll just be overwhelmed by it all? I’ve been there, John. The smell alone is going to be enough to take you right back to your captivity just like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘It’s a dark, dank place and they should just destroy it.’

‘That’s the plan. But first they want the records, and they want to make sure there are no bodies left.’

‘They don’t need you for that.’

’No, they don’t. But Jack asked Stephen, and Stephen thinks it might be good for me.’

‘Good for you?’

‘If I'm ever going to sleep without nightmares, I have to face what I went through.’

‘I thought that was what the bi-weekly visits to the shrink were for.’ It came out harsher than he’d meant it to. ‘Sorry. I know talking to the doc is helping.’

‘It is. But I think… I think this might help too.’

Michael dropped into the armchair, knowing when to give up. ‘You’ve made up your mind.’

John nodded. ‘I hadn’t, this morning when we spoke. But I’ve been sitting here all afternoon running the idea through my head and as… frightening as it is, as scared as I am, I think I need to do this.’

As much as Michael wanted to talk his friend out of this, he knew he wouldn’t. ‘You’re not going alone.’ It wasn't a question.

‘Stephen’s coming with me.’ He wasn’t expecting that, but maybe he should have been. He honestly thought that Stephen would follow John to the end of the universe and right off the edge. Curiously, he seemed to have that effect on a lot of people. 

John shifted, pain clear on his face, hand on his abdomen.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You did go to MedLab this afternoon?’

‘If I hadn’t, Stephen would have hunted me down. I’d… pulled my stitches, irritated the incision in my intestine.’

Shaking his head, Michael threw up his hands. ‘How are we supposed to look after you if you won’t look after yourself?’

There was a warning note in John’s voice when he insisted, ‘I just went for a walk.’

It was the same note they often heard when one of them pushed too far. As ill as John had been, before that he’d been a fiercely independent man. There were times when he hated having to rely on them for as much as he did. 

Sitting forward, Michael ached to reach out and touch, but John didn’t seem to want that right now. 

‘Do you want me to go with you, to Mars?’ He already knew the answer, but he wanted to give John the option anyway.

’I don’t want to leave Susan to cope on her own here. It’s not fair.’ It was a perfectly good and reasonable explanation, but it wasn’t the reason. He waited. ‘I have no illusions that this is going to be easy. If you came with me, I think I’d find it harder to be honest with myself, to be honest in my reactions to it. If that makes sense.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, actually it does.’

‘I know you don’t want me to go. I understand why.’

‘I don’t want you to go because once you’re there you might realise just how much my betrayal cost you, how deep it cut. Please don’t let them hurt you all over again.’

‘I know it wasn't you in that bar, Mike. And... I’ll try.’ That’s all he could ask for. ‘What about you? Do you plan on ever going back?’

‘To Mars?’

‘Isn’t that where Lise is?’

He hesitated. ‘Yeah, it is. Running her dead husband’s business.’

‘I know you love her, Mike. Are you planning on joining her?’

He’d hoped not to have this conversation. ‘I was, when I left to come back here. My best hope for us was that I’d say sorry, you’d forgive me, and we’d go our separate ways. But you… you did more than just forgive me. You trusted me again. You’re right, I do love Lise. But I love you too. I don’t ever expect you to feel the same way about me, not after everything that’s happened, but I meant it when I said I’ll never leave you unless you ask me to go.’

‘What is it that you want from me?’

‘Nothing you’re not already giving.’

John shook his head. ‘I don’t want you to regret leaving her, not going back for her. I’m not asking you to abandon her, I never would.’ 

Getting to his feet, Michael crossed to where John was sitting and crouched down in front of his knees, hands resting gently on them.

‘My life has always been… chaotic. I was out of control until I came here, to Babylon 5. Jeff saved my life and I fell in love with him. Then he was gone and you were there, and for a while nothing made sense. But you… you changed everything. Like Jeff, you were a full time job. Racing off in a Starfury, going walkabout on the outside of the station, breaking up fights, getting abducted by aliens…. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself because if I let you out of my sight for a second, you were off trying to get yourself killed in new and imaginative ways. There was a time I actually thought you might be suicidal. I didn’t realise how I felt about you until that first night we spent together. If Bester hadn’t done what he did, I would never have left your side. The me who fell back in love with Lise, that was a construct, Bester’s construct. So I do still love her, but the person I am now would never have walked away from you, so I’ll never regret staying because this is where I belong.’

John sighed with meaning, tapping fingertips on the back on Michael’s hand. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure any of what he’d said was what John had wanted to hear.

‘The problem is, I don’t know if this is where I belong anymore.’

Michael sat back on his ankles, breathed deep, then moved to sit up on the couch next to John. 

‘How about you talk to me now, as your friend.’

John hesitated, but he waited. 

‘I talked to Stephen about… my problem.’

That was a step forward. ‘Okay. Good. Was he… helpful?’

‘He reassured me that it’s psychosomatic rather than physical.’

‘Did he give you any advice?’

‘He told me to stop trying to force it.’ 

‘Do you know what makes me so good at my job? I know when I’m being lied to-‘

‘It’s what he said!’

‘And when someone’s dancing around the truth.’ John glanced up at him, and Michael suddenly realised why he wasn’t telling him everything. He sat up. ‘It’s me, isn’t it? You tried to get it up for me, but why the hell should your dick be interested in the guy who caused all the pain and suffering in the first place?’

John’s fingers touched his leg briefly. ‘Please don’t take it personally. I can’t get it up when I’m alone either, so no, it’s not all about you.’

‘And Stephen just told you not to force it?’

‘Yeah. And for once, I’m going to take his advice and stop trying to convince my body to do something it’s not ready to do. I’m going to Mars, Mike, I’m going to… deal with that. When I get back, I’ll decide about the Alliance job. And maybe once all that’s sorted out, my dick might be a bit more cooperative.’

*

The thing about deep discussions and confessions was the sheer energy it took to have them. They eventually made it to bed, late, just crashed out side by side, John under the comforter and Michael lying on top. He stayed because he thought the discussions about the Mars trip, coupled with the attack on John the previous morning and his subsequent stay in MedLab, might trigger new nightmares. He stayed because he wouldn’t walk away, not again.

Despite feeling utterly wrung out, he couldn’t sleep. John slept with the lights low, rather than in complete darkness. There was a strange little lamp on the table in the corner that cast odd patterns on the ceiling as the base of it turned. It reminded Michael of an old carousel toy he’d had when he was very young. He lay awake and stared at the patterns as they shifted slowly.

It wasn’t his own long-winded and somewhat confused declaration of undying devotion that bothered him, or the idea that he was the reason John couldn’t get his dick to show any interest in sex, but rather the thought of him going back to Mars.

Michael didn’t know what he saw in the nightmares that regularly disturbed his sleep, he never talked about them, at least not with him. But he could make a few educated guesses. Not that he wanted to. Often, he found himself wondering how much detail John shared with the shrink, Dr Osaka, and how she coped with having that knowledge. But then he supposed that was the thing about professional detachment, and he wondered how Stephen coped.

As far as Michael was concerned, the only thing that waited for John on Mars was pain and horror. He doubted going back was going to help, but once John set his mind to something it took a lot of patience and determination to change it. He didn’t have a plausible reason why John shouldn’t go, just a couple of mostly selfish ones. It wasn’t as if he’d recovered yet from his time there. Physically, there were dark patches on his skin where the bruising had gone deep into the tissue and down to the bone. He referred to them sometimes as stains. Michael was sure that returning was only going to add more stains. Then again, maybe John was right, maybe it would help to heal the wounds they couldn’t see.

It did occur to Michael that there was another, purely selfish reason he didn’t want him to go, and that was Jack Maynard. He honestly didn’t know what was going on there. He knew Maynard had resigned his EarthForce position, but he didn’t know why or what he had planned. He knew John had missed him in the couple of weeks he’d been gone, knew he was happy Jack was finally coming back. They’d known each other so much longer than Michael had known John, but for years Maynard had just been a footnote in their shared history, a friend who’d dropped by once and ended up staying for a couple of weeks, leaving behind nothing but an Egyptian blessing John had quoted on a couple of meaningful occasions. 

Never in a million years had he thought the strange, vibrant captain of the Cortez would ever factor into their lives again in any meaningful way. Yet he’d been there, on the Agamemnon, been with John after the worst days of his life, and during the horrific hours that followed. He’d stayed. And somewhere along the line, a connection Michael hadn’t even been aware of had pulled taut and drawn them back to one another. That Jack loved John was in no doubt. He wasn’t sure about John’s feelings, but if pushed, he would have said the attraction was mutual.

One thing Michael knew for sure was that for the entire time they were gone, he was going to be impossible. He needed to find something to keep himself occupied when he wasn’t working, a project of some sort, useful and productive.

Around three in the morning, he had a spark of inspiration which finally meant he could sleep, and half an hour after that, John woke him when he got up suddenly and bolted for the bathroom.

*

Stephen looked up when door to MedLab 1 swung upwards. He got to his feet.

‘John, what happened?’

‘I was sick in the early hours. I’m okay but Michael suggested you check my stitches.’

‘Did he? Well, at least one of you has some common sense.’ He ushered John through into an examination room, watching the way he moved, the way he kept one arm wrapped around his abdomen.

‘Top off and lie down, John.’

For once he did as he was told, which was telling in itself. Stephen peeled off the dressings and examined the small incisions. They were both slightly inflamed, but irritated rather than infected. He applied some salve to each of them, still wary of administering any more meds. He changed the saline bag attached to the IV.

‘Long shot, I know, but is there any chance of me keeping you here for the rest of the day?’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re incapable of following my instructions.’

‘I’ll rest today. You have my word.’

Stephen rolled his eyes but let it go. ‘You can get dressed. You’re okay but I’ll keep an eye on it. If they’re still inflamed in a couple of hours I’ll add antibiotics to the mix. Back here at twelve or I am coming looking for you.’

‘Fine.’ He hesitated. ‘Stephen… I’ve made a decision. I’m going to Mars.’

‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll arrange cover, and I’ll get a message to Jack.’

*

The Agamemnon was late arriving. C&C was tracking it, and Susan had reassured them it was just down to a delay in them leaving Earth.

Michael waited with John in the observation deck, one level up from docking bay 1. This whole thing was making him apprehensive. The ship’s arrival was going to be the start of what he was sure was going to be a hellish week, for both of them, but the sooner it started, the sooner it would be over and he could deal with the fallout.

The jumpgate activated, and despite his anxiety, Michael couldn’t help but marvel at the incredible sight of a ship, not much smaller than the station itself, looming into view. He glanced at John and didn’t begrudge him this moment of happiness.

Offering his arm, he gave a little dramatic bow. ‘Sir, may I escort you to the docking bay?’

They made it in time to watch Jack pass through customs. Michael hung back and let John go forward, watching as the two men came face to face, as Jack said something to him and they shared a gentle, easy hug.

When they parted, John stepped to the side and Jack slipped an arm around his waist, John’s arm going around Jack’s shoulders, looking for all the world like a reunited couple-

-a very loud, very bright explosion took out most of the floor of the docking bay, crippling load-bearing struts and buckling the bay doors.

Michael was thrown backwards. His shoulder collided with the wall and he dropped to the ground, winded and with a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise in one piece. The dust settled. His ears rang with the echo of the explosion. The main lights were out, but the emergency lighting was still functioning, bathing the scene of twisted metal and mercifully few bodies in a macabre red.

For a couple of seconds he stared into the smokey void where the ID check and registration desks had once been. Then he shouted John’s name, as loud as his abused lungs could manage.

John and Jack dropped twenty feet to the cargo bay below. As luck would have it, a large delivery of cereals, flour, pasta and rice had arrived earlier in the day, and hadn’t yet been collected. They landed on twelve ten-kilo bags of bread flour.

Jack opened his eyes and blinked. It was dusty, smokey and hot, but he could breathe okay and nothing was on fire as far as he could see. He did a quick scan down his own body to check everything was still attached, then gingerly pushed himself into a sitting position. Next to him, John was sprawled on his back, lying utterly still. With a shaking hand, Jack pressed two fingers to his throat and found a pulse; strong, if a little too fast.

But his relief was short-lived. As his eyes got used to the dim, red light, he saw a dark patch spreading across John’s chest, through the material of his jumper.

‘Oh, God…. Johnny…’ Carefully he touched his fingers to it and felt the warm, sticky dampness. ‘No, no, no.’

He didn’t want to see the wound. Judging by the rate the patch was increasing in size, John was losing blood so fast he knew he had no chance of stemming the tide. But he had to look, just in case there was something he could do. 

With a deep breath that broke on a heartfelt sob, he lifted the hem of John’s jumper and felt relief crash through him.

There was no wound. Just an empty saline bag and a dislodged IV.

With a deep, shuddering breath, he lay back. ‘Jesus, John, give me a fucking heart attack why don’t you?’

*

Michael could hear the moans of the injured, but there was no response to his calls. He moved cautiously, unsure if the part of the floor that hadn’t given way was safe or not. He knew the emergency teams would be there very soon. He was sure John and Jack had been behind the blast, so chances were they’d dropped into the cargo bay that had opened up below. When he reached the edge, he could see bags piled up twenty or so feet below him, and a couple of Centauri hopefully just unconscious, sprawled in a puddle of what looked like rice. The docking bay had been mercifully quiet at the time of the explosion. That was either a mistake on the bomber’s part, or this had been a technical malfunction. He’d put money on it being the former rather than the latter.

It wasn’t long before the blast doors were forcibly lifted, and an army of medics and security flooded into the damaged area of the station. Stephen was one of the first under the door before it was even fully up. He saw Michael at the same time as Michael saw him, and his face fell.

‘He was in here?’ 

‘Yeah. The Agamemnon had just docked. He was with Maynard up front.’ Michael picked his way across to him. 

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ He could feel blood running down the inside of his knee, but as he could still walk, he didn’t think it was anything that required urgent attention. 

‘You’re bleeding.’

He touched a finger to a cut above his right eye. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Any sign of them?’

‘No.’

‘Chief!’ Michael looked up in the direction of Zack’s call. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine!’ He made his way cautiously over to where Zack was standing. ‘The captain’s in here somewhere. Any idea what happened?’

‘The scanners reported a malfunction in a power coupling to the bay doors just before the explosion.’

An accident. Michael wondered if that would make it better or worse if John…. He pushed that thought aside. He had to be alive. The alternative was unbearable.

The rescuers started to manoeuvre their way through the wreckage, searching out the injured. After a few minutes they stopped moving and fell silent, listening for any signs of life.

‘Down here!’ 

Going to the jagged edge of the floor, Michael, Zack and Stephen got down on all fours and tried to pinpoint where Jack’s call had come from. Someone had brought in a spotlight and it was shining down into the red hued darkness of the cargo bay below.

‘Jack?’

‘Over here.’ Finally, Michael spotted them, on top of a pile of sacks, close to the hull. 

‘Jack! Are you both okay?’

‘I’m okay. John’s unconscious.’

‘Stay put. We’ll get you out.’

With Michael and Zack working on the rescue plan, Stephen followed the direction of the beam of light and located them. ‘Jack?’

‘Hi, Stephen.’

‘Can you see anyone else around you?’

There was a pause. ‘I don’t see anyone.’

‘What’s your situation?’

‘I’ve possibly got a cracked rib, and I might have had a heart attack. John’s got a couple of fairly deep scratches on his arms, and I thought… Jesus, Stephen, what’s with the IV?’

‘Long story. It’s okay if the bag’s burst. Can you check on his stitches, tell me if he’s burst them?’

Jack fell quiet for a couple of seconds. ’Stephen, what are these? What happened?’

‘I’ll explain when we get you out of there. Have the stitches held?’

‘Yeah. They look okay.’

‘Good. Stay there. It won’t be long.

Jack was in the process of lowering John’s jumper again when suddenly John was awake and a hand was batting at him.

‘Get off me!’

‘Sorry.’ He started to breathe a little easier. ‘Doctor’s orders.’ He shuffled up to look John in the eyes. ‘Some welcome back this is!’

He saw the moment John realised who he was and where they were. ‘Sorry.’

He looked okay, appeared to focus easily enough. He tried to sit up, but Jack put a hand on his shoulder and pushed gently against him. ‘Stay there. Just in case.’

John nodded once and relaxed. ‘What happened?’

‘No idea. Something exploded.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Hey, it takes more than a twenty foot fall onto baking ingredients to hurt me.’

‘What?’

‘Flour, I think, judging by the taste of what I initially thought was dust. Not the drug. Although imagine if It had been….’ He shut up. ‘What’s with the IV and the stitches?’

‘Oh.’ John glanced down at himself. ‘Clarke’s interrogators left a couple of little surprises inside me for good measure. One of them was activated two days ago, drugged me from the inside. Stephen cut out two more out.’

‘Jesus….’ Jack could feel the heat of John’s skin from under the heavy wool and wondered at having not yet moved his hand away.

A minute or two later, there was another call down. ‘The cargo bay doors have buckled. They’re going to have to cut their way in. Keep your heads down and your eyes closed.’

Jack curled himself around John as best as he could, covering his ears with his hands as John did the same. When the screeching sound of metal on metal started, he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.

*

Stephen checked them both out in MedLab and cleared them to leave less than half an hour later. He’d been concerned about possible concussion, but they both seemed fine. More than anything they needed to shower and change, hair and clothes matted white with flour and metallic dust particles. Stephen told John he’d be by his quarters later to redress his stitches, seeing as though the fresh dressings he’d only just applied were going to get soaked the moment John set foot under the spray.

Michael had stayed with the rescue team, reassured John was in good hands. 

Jack showered and changed in Stephen’s quarters and went straight to John’s. The shower was still running, and he dropped into the corner seat of the sofa, head back, listening for any untoward sound that might indicate John needed help. After a couple of minutes the water stopped and he relaxed, closing his eyes. He had a headache, and he was willing to bet John did too, not that either of them had mentioned it to the doctor.

He thought he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew John was making himself comfortable, lying on the sofa with his head pillowed on Jack’s thigh, feet up on the cushions. Jack absently brushed damp hair from John’s forehead, watching his blue eyes close.

‘When I was here three years ago, your hair was the colour of an autumn sunrise.’

‘Old romantic.’ Jack laughed softly. ‘I think that’s what it said on the bottle.’

He deliberately combed his fingers through the grey. ‘Like you’d even bother dying it.’

‘I think it looks distinguished. How haven’t you gone grey?’

‘Lack of stress. Give it a couple of months here with you, I’m sure that’ll change.’

Opening his eyes, gazing up at him, John murmured, I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you too, Johnny.’

‘I’m coming with you to Mars.’ 

‘I know. Stephen left me a message.’ He didn’t ask if he was sure about it. 

‘I’m scared.’

‘I’ll be there with you, every step.’

*

The door chimed an hour or so later. John was asleep and there was no way Jack was going to disturb him. He knew whoever it was would either go away or override the system, and when he heard the door wheeze open he knew it had to be one of three people. 

Actually it was two of them. 

If Michael was surprised, or something else, at seeing John lying with his head in Jack’s lap, Jack’s fingers in his hair, he didn’t show it. Stephen gave them a broad smile. 

‘I’ve come to dress his stitches. And Michael’s got a cunning plan.’

*

‘It’s partly Susan’s plan too,’ Michael explained once John was awake and aware, sitting up with fresh dressings and a glass of water. ‘We have an idea about how to find the bastard who activated the delivery device, but in order for it to work, we need to get John off the station without anyone knowing he’s gone. That way, we can try to lure whoever’s responsible into remotely activating the remaining devices. With scanners set up to detect any signal being sent to them, we should be able to pinpoint where the it originates from before the perp can get too far."

‘How do we sneak the most recognisable man in the galaxy off his own station without anyone knowing?’

’That’s where Susan’s expertise in sneaking comes in handy.’

*

Jack found Michael in the observation deck above C&C, just hours before they were due to leave. He moved to stand at the man’s side but didn’t speak. The view was absolutely stunning, even with the Agamemnon’s impressive bulk blocking the stars. 

‘I hope you and Stephen are doing the right thing,’ Garibaldi murmured.

‘So do I. I thought you might be coming with us.’

‘He doesn’t want me to and I understand why.’

Jack glanced across at him. ‘Sorry.’

‘No. He’s right. He needs to be able to react to being there, and seeing him fall apart like we both know he’s going to… I think it would kill me. I just hope you and Stephen can put him back together.’

‘Me too. Because it we can’t, it’ll be on me.’

‘If anyone can, you can.’ Jack understood how much it cost him to admit that. ‘You’re the only one not directly connected with that place, the only one they didn’t use against him. You have no idea how envious that makes me.’

He didn’t have a response to Michael’s confession. He was right in that John had turned to him because at the beginning he was the only one he’d allowed himself to trust completely. And that had started a chain reaction which was still in motion.

But he needed to give him something. ‘I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. I don’t know what I’d have done if they’d used me to hurt him. I swear to you, I won’t let this make things worse. If I don’t think he can cope, if I think for a second it’s causing him more harm than good, I’ll bring him right back. I’ve been asked to do a job, but as far as I’m concerned, that comes second to what he needs to get out of this. If I have to get him away from there, I will. And… if I need to destroy certain records to keep them out of certain hands… I won’t hesitate.’

Michael sighed and nodded, deflating a little. ‘You’re a good man, Jack. He - we - are damn lucky to have you.’

Jack felt a little guilty at hearing that. He’d meant every word he’d said, but there were things he hadn’t said, things he knew Michael wouldn’t want to hear. Might try to rip his balls off for even thinking. 

In the end, all the decisions were John’s to make. But Jack was far from innocent of a little nudging, here and there. The reason he’d been so confident in resigning, for one, the next step that awaited him, something he hadn’t mentioned to anyone yet. 

*

Brother Theo and his monks had remained on Babylon Five during the war and the rebellion. They spent their time in DownBelow, helping those for whom the fighting was difficult to understand and impossible to cope with.

At Garibaldi’s request, one of the monks - about the same height and shape as Captain Sheridan - arrived at the captain’s quarters in full monastic dress. With the hood of the rough brown robes up, hands lost inside the voluminous sleeves, hemline down to the soles of the boots, one monk looked much like another.

Half an hour after he’d arrived, the same robes headed for docking bay five where they boarded a shuttle, alone.

Jack and Stephen were already aboard the Agamemnon when the transport doubled back around the station, flew in behind the ship and docked with it, out of sight of prying eyes. 

*

Jack keyed in a code and the door slid open. ‘This is you. Stephen’s next door. Well, he’s supposed to be next door. At the moment he’s causing chaos in the infirmary.’

John laughed. ‘He does that.’

‘I think the chief medical officer is a little bit in love. Computer. Lights, fifty percent.’

He enjoyed John’s soft, appreciative whistle. ‘VIP quarters?’

They stepped inside. Living space on a destroyer vessel was functional. Even the command staff had very little room. They’d had a nickname for them when John was captain of this ship. Jack shrugged. ‘I wasn’t sure how comfortable you’d be in the tin can quarters.’ It brought a smile to John’s face. ‘Besides, your old room is taken.’

‘That’s where you are?’ 

‘I’m still captain, still in charge until we return to B5. Then Kate Paver steps into my shoes. She’ll look after the old girl.’

‘Are you absolutely sure about giving up command?’

‘Absolutely. It’s done. In less than a week everyone can stop calling me ‘Sir’.’ He paused. ‘Although from what I hear, I might soon be calling you Mr President.’ Judging by the way John’s expression changed, Jack wondered if the rumours were wrong. ‘Sorry, Johnny…. It’s all over your station.’ 

‘They’ve asked.’ He walked further into the room, stopped and turned. ‘I just don’t know if I want it or not.’

Jack hesitated before sitting on the edge of the small couch, the likes of which was in each of the dignitaries quarters. 

‘I’m not supposed to tell you this. They swore me to secrecy, I think because they don’t want your decision swayed in either direction.’

John sat down next to him. ‘Tell me what?’

‘When I was on B5 the last time, Delenn approached me. She offered me a job in the Alliance, and I accepted.’

He was relieved to see John smile. ‘What’s the job?’

‘I’m not sure it’s even got a title yet, but she’s asked me to consult on strategy, to head up various teams working on ideas to resolve conflicts in all kinds of areas. It sounded interesting, with the added bonus that there won’t be people shooting on me on a regular basis.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’ But he looked happy. ‘That’s great news. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you. Please don’t tell them I told you.’

‘I won’t. Do you know where you’ll be stationed?’

‘Babylon 5, for the time being. But eventually I’ll move to the new facilities they’re building on Minbar. Never in a million years did I think I’d end up living there.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘So I’ve heard. I’m looking forward to seeing it.’

John turned on the seat, leaning his shoulder against the back cushion. ‘What’s the real reason you didn’t tell me before?’

‘I told you, they swore me to secrecy.’

‘Please. Like that would have stopped you.’

Jack wasn’t sure how to put the real reason into words. ‘I didn’t want you to think….’ He shook his head. ‘Before I left for Earth, something was changing between us. I wasn't sure if it was just you needing to feel safe, needing to know there was someone close by you could trust, or if there was more to it. If it was simply because you needed me there, I am more than okay with it. That’s why I stayed, to give you that safety net, to be there for you when you weren’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. I know you. You… rebel against anything you perceive as a constraint and I didn't want to become part of the problem. What happened to you on Mars and everything that came after, you had no say over any of it. I think your life’s been slipping out of your hands for years; everyone using you, manipulating you for their own goals, even if you shared those goals. I understand you grappling to take back some semblance of control, and I wasn’t sure if I was just a part of that response, or if it was something more, something deeper.

‘But while I was on Earth, I realised that even if your reaction to me was tied into your recovery, my reaction to you wasn’t. Something has changed, and I think you are feeling at least a little of what I am. I just don't know if you want me, or you and Michael are working things out... Or even if you want to be with anyone right now, if that’s the last thing you need and you just want everyone to leave you the hell alone. That’s why I didn’t mention it.’

John didn’t say anything at first. He was studying Jack’s face with a half-smile, eyes bright and maybe for the first time in a long time, he looked happy.

‘You do make me feel safe.’ It sounded like a confession. ‘I trust you with my life. And that’s partly because they didn’t use you during my interrogation, it’s partly because I feel like I’ve known you forever. So at the start, yeah, there was definitely an element of needing you around. But recently, when I think about you, when I look at you, there is so much more to what I feel. As for Michael… we’ll never go back to what we were, but we were never… a couple. We did try, once, just after you’d left. But I couldn’t.’ 

‘And you’re surprised at that? Jesus, John… I imagine the very last thing your body needs right now is sex. It’s been abused, pushed to its limits. It’s still trying to recover.’ Reaching out, he curled his hand gently around John’s shoulder, careful not to apply any pressure, just letting him feel the warmth of his skin. ‘I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about the other thing. The complicated thing. The thing I vowed I’d steer clear of, and managed to keep that vow until a month or so ago. This is why I didn’t want to mention the job, or even talk about why I didn’t want to mention the job. Because the last thing I want is to take from you after you’ve already given everything you have to the whole damn universe.’

John covered his hand with his own. ‘You don't have to take anything; I want to give it to you. For the first time in a long while I feel like there's something within my reach that's going to be really good. But... I need to deal with what's waiting for me on Mars. I just need to get everything straight in my own head, what really happened and what didn't, so when you and I... I can be certain it's real.’

Jack lifted John’s hand to his mouth and kissed the tips of his fingers. Then he got to his feet and immediately regretted it, wishing he’d stayed seated for a few more minutes. 

John gave him a wry smile. ‘When you said you weren’t talking about sex…?’ 

He deserved that. ‘I wasn’t talking about it. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about it.’

The happy smile was worth all the teasing in the world.

*

They had dinner in the mess hall, or Jack and Stephen did. They were concerned that watching others eat would just be further torture, but John reassured them that he wasn’t hungry. They spent a couple of hours talking with some of the ship’s crew, many of whom John knew from back when he’d been her captain. They shared memories of happier times, caught up with lives and loves, and said goodnight around twenty three hundred hours. 

On the walk back to their assigned quarters, Stephen managed to get John to admit he was still in some discomfort after the surgery and the explosion which had dropped him twenty feet onto a pile of hessian sacks packed with flour.

Performing a quick examination once they reached John’s quarters, Stephen added a mild anti-sickness med to the IV mix. 

‘The incisions look to be healing well and I can’t feel any swelling. But if you’re still not feeling right when we get home, I’ll do a scan and run a blood panel, see what’s going on.’

‘Thanks, Doc.’

Stephen packed away his bag and hesitated before leaving. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

‘You mean sleeping alone?’

‘I didn’t mean….’

‘I know what you meant. But I’ve been sleeping alone more or less since Jack left B5.’

That surprised him. ‘I thought Michael had been staying with you?’

‘I kicked him out. Sleeping on a sofa isn’t good for his back. You could have told him that. I’ll be fine. If I need you, you’re right next door.’

‘Okay. Sorry. I tend to get overprotective with the patients who take up the majority of my time.’ They shared a look, wry smiles and apologetic shrugs. ‘Night, John.’

‘G’night, Stephen.’

*

Fighting to breathe, John clawed at the imagined bag over his head and succeeded only in pushing the pillow from the bed. It collided with the glass on the table and sound of it hitting the deck.

He lay in the semi-darkness, eyes wide, sucking in oxygen until he remembered where he was. 

He’d gone off easily, the underlying vibrations of a huge starship moving through space pulling him under. Even now, the images from the nightmare were fading, and he let himself feel the ship’s movement again, let himself be lulled back to sleep and not be put off by what might be waiting for him in the dark.

He felt the ship lurch.

For something as big as the Agamemnon to be affected by hyperspace turbulence was unheard of. Either they'd hit something, or something had hit them.

Almost immediately the klaxons sounded an alert. Without thinking, John pulled on his trousers and a sweater, stepped hurriedly into his shoes, and went to find out what was going on.

*

‘What happened?’

From the captain’s chair, Jack glanced up, surprised to see John there, then wondering why. Of course he was there. 

‘We’re not sure. We think something fired at us then vanished, but there isn’t a breach. The computers are reporting one of the starboard pulse cannons is inactive.’ To his Number One, Jack said, ‘Can we get the alarms turned off?’

‘Yes, Sir.’ The resulting quiet was almost deafening.

From further forward along the command deck, a voice reported, ‘Scanners are showing one alien life sign.’

‘Where?’

‘On the starboard hull, Sir.’

John asked, ‘Would that be where your pulse cannon’s located?’

‘One of them. Slow to one third current speed. Get a maintenance bot out there with a camera, let’s take a look.’

They dispatched the bot and remotely piloted it around to where the affected pulse cannon was located. Jack stood over the shoulder of the bot’s pilot and watched the feed from the camera on the screen. He could feel John at his side, and it was a good feeling. They’d only worked together once before on a command deck, and that was under the bleakest of circumstances, with death and desperation in the air. It was the same command deck, the same ship, despite the rebuild and the refurbishment. But the feeling was completely different. Jack was… content. Happy. Just to share this with the man felt like a win.

For the first time in years, he wanted to laugh simply because he was alive. 

When he saw what was causing one of their weapons to be reporting as inoperable, he did laugh. He could feel his crew watching him out of the corners of their eyes, maybe just a little concerned about his sanity.

‘Looks like we’ve picked up a hitchhiker.’ John met his gaze, mirroring his amusement back at him.

‘There’s a big, green, alien blob hugging my damn ship!’ It reminded him of a giant octopus he'd once kept well out of the way of, scuba diving off the Eastern Australian coast during his student days. 

‘It’s all kinds of sweet,’ John murmured, hand on his chest, eyes sparkling with mischief.

Affectionately, quietly, he murmured, ‘You are unbelievable,’ before turning to the rest of the command crew. ‘Right. I want it off the hull, safely. And by safely, I mean without hurting it, or us.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

*

It was late, but the adrenaline was taking time to wear off. Giant green blob might not have been an alien warship trying to blast them out of space, or a shadow vessel out for much more than blood. But it could have been something that cost them their lives.

‘I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to live on the knife edge,’ Jack muttered. They pulled metal chairs out from under a table in the otherwise empty mess hall and dropped into them.

‘I haven’t. Every day in charge of B5 is like that.’ He sounded tired, and Jack wondered if he shouldn’t have just taken John back to his quarters. 

‘Is that why you’re sharing command with Susan?’

‘I’m not, not really. In reality, Susan’s running the place. I’ve been doing the paperwork, attending council meetings, sorting out trade disputes. The easy stuff.’

‘Why?’ John looked at him, waited. ‘Johnny?’

He sighed. ‘Because I’m scared, Jack. I’m so goddamn scared. There was a fight in one of the Red sector bars last week. I went to help break it up and someone grabbed me, went to land a punch. He didn’t know who I was, he was drunk, just lashing out. I broke his arm in two places.’

‘You can’t feel bad for defending yourself.’

‘The week before last, we had a shuttle blow, right outside C&C. This blinding explosion…. Apparently I lost it, had some sort of panic attack. I woke up in MedLab. Stephen had had to sedate me. I swear to God, if I wake up in MedLab just once more I’ll need to start paying rent.’

‘The last time you were solely in command, you had to give the order to ram an operational weapons platform. That order would have killed all of us on the ship. Is it any wonder the thought of having that kind of responsibility again scares the shit out of you?’ 

‘I’ve given orders like that before. I’ve spent half my life sending people into situations I know they’re unlikely to return from. I trained for it.’

‘And then the people who trained you turned on you. Tortured you. You were drugged up to the eyeballs when you boarded the Agamemnon. You didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t, whether you were safe, whether you were going to die. You were so far from being in any state to command that ship and yet you had to and you did, when what your body needed was to sleep and to heal.’ He pushed his chair back and put his feet up on the table. ‘You know, you came alive back there, on the bridge.’

‘It was an alien life form that thought the ship was its mother. It wasn’t aiming a heavy arsenal at us. It wasn’t threatening to blow us out of hyperspace.’

‘You didn’t know that when you came up to the command deck. It could have been an enemy vessel for all you knew.’

‘And if it had been, it would have been a completely different story.’

‘I don’t know, I think you’re stronger than that.’

John snorted. ‘Then why were you worried about me coming with you to Mars?’

‘That’s different. Walking back into the place where you were brutalised and terrorised is not the same as facing off the enemy with the fire power of an Omega class destroyer at your fingertips. They were the cowards, Johnny. They couldn’t fight you aboard Babylon Five, they couldn’t fight you aboard the Agamemnon. They had to lure you to a seedy bar with lies, use a friend to betray you, drug you before taking you on, and even then they failed to break you.’

As he spoke, he watched John’s face carefully, looked for any sign he needed to back the fuck off. Instead, John just nodded. Then he put his feet up on a chair opposite and closed his eyes. Searching the space between them blindly, he found Jack’s hand and wrapped his fingers around it.

The mess hall staff found them like that, two hours later, when they started to prep for breakfast.

*

Susan found Michael at Eve’s in the Zocalo.

‘You never eat in the mess anymore,’ she said with a smile, sitting down, picking up the menu from the table. 

‘There’s so much John can’t eat. Eve makes lots of potato… things.’

‘Good morning, Michael.’ They both looked up at the short female Drazi smiling at them from over her pad. ‘No captain today?’ 

Garibaldi gave her a winning smile. ‘He sends his apologies. He's busy with a delegation for a few days. But he asked me to take him a stack of Poffles with Grazing Syrup, if you’ve got them.’

‘For him, anything. I'll have them wrapped up warm for when you leave. What can I get for you and your new friend?’

Michael introduced Susan. ‘Not so much a new friend as an old and treasured one.’ Susan looked at him, suddenly struck by how much she’d missed him. ‘I will have a bowl of Dill Spuds and while I can, I'll have a large coffee.’

Ivanova gave up with the menu. ‘Just the coffee, thank you.’ Eve tipped her head in acknowledgement and left them alone. ‘While you can?’

‘Obviously I don’t drink it when he’s around.’

‘Of course you don’t. Sorry.’ Through the Zocalo, they could hear the marketplace sellers setting out their stalls. ‘You two eat here every morning?’

‘Not every morning. A couple of times a week. I think John likes that it's just the two of us, but at the same time he's surrounded by people.’

‘Privacy in a crowd.’

‘Something like that.’

The coffees arrived promptly.

‘How are you, Michael?’

‘I’m doing okay, thanks for asking.’

She shrugged. ‘We’ve all been looking out for John, worrying about him. We forget sometimes that you went through something too.’

‘At least… Bester undid what he’d done. I’m not saying I don’t have nightmares, I do. Lyta's done a couple of scans, made things a bit easier, but some nights what I did plays in my head like a home movie. We can’t undo what they did to John. The shit they pumped into him means he has nightmares in full, glorious Technicolor.’

Eve brought over Michael’s order, a bowl of Dill Spuds. As he dug in, Susan sniffed, intoxicated by the incredible aroma of herbs and oils.

‘What is that?’

Garibaldi shovelled a loaded fork into this mouth. ‘I guess... it's the... Drazi equivalent... of roast potatoes.’

“It smells fantastic.’

He grinned at her. ‘Tastes fantastic. Better yet, it’s definitely not on any of Stephen’s food plans.’ She stole one from the bowl while he was taking a drink of his coffee. ‘Don’t think I didn’t see that.’

‘So… how are things going… with the two of you?’

He wiggled the fork at her. ‘If you get to ask that, I get to ask about you and Marcus.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

“That’s how you’re going to play it?’

‘There is no ‘me and Marcus’.’

‘Fine.’ He speared another potato and ate it with relish. 

‘All right, all right. We’re… something more than just good friends.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘We’re taking it slowly.’

‘Slowly? Susan, he’s been crazy about you from the moment he came aboard three years ago.’

‘It’s taking me time to catch up. So. Your turn.’

He stabbed a potato and looked at it like it was the most interesting thing in the universe. ‘When I came back here from Mars, the best I was hoping for was forgiveness. We’ve made it back to friends, and that’s more than I thought would be possible after what I did.’

‘What Bester did.’

‘Easy to say, more difficult when he’s got the memory of me selling him out to Clarke in what had to be the worst possible way.’

‘I thought you two were getting on okay, I thought you were working through it.’

‘We are.’ He bit into the spud, avoiding the fork prongs. 

‘But…’

‘But things are different now. And I think I’ve got competition this time around.’

*

The Agamemnon, despite her current deployment, was a destroyer. Everything about her was designed to carry troops into battle, designed to win in a firefight. It was functional rather than comfortable. But there was a nod to practicality, and the observation decks tended to keep the 800-strong crew from feeling like they were trapped in a moving metal tube. 

That’s where Stephen and Jack found John later that morning, such as morning was on a starship; in the observation deck closest to the command deck. He was sitting staring out of the glass, watching the eddies in the flow of hyperspace around them. 

They didn’t disturb him, not immediately, just watched from a distance. 

‘How’s he doing?’ Stephen asked quietly, and Jack looked at him curiously.

‘You’re asking me? You’re the doctor.’

‘But he talks to you, probably tells you things he wouldn’t even think to tell me.’

Jack thought about it. ‘He’s created this facade that he’s using to face the world. But the pain and the fear are just below the surface. We need to be very careful when we’re on Mars.’ 

‘We will be.’

‘How is he physically? I mean - before this latest attack, was he improving?’

‘Absolutely. All the broken bones have mended, all the internal injuries have healed. The bruising is still obvious in places where it was deep enough to damage the muscle and bone; that’ll take time to fade. But he was starting to eat properly, despite the drugs still in his system.’

‘How long will they stay there?’

‘Years, most likely. I doubt he’ll ever be completely free of them. That’s why I don’t understand the sleepers they left inside him, I don’t get the point of pumping him full of psychotropics after the fact.’

‘Maybe… it was insurance, a threat to hold over him once they’d broken him, once he was out in the world again.’

‘I don’t think they were ever planning on letting him out into the world again. Once he’d read their confession, betrayed the resistance, told them everything, done what they wanted, I think they would have killed him. He would have been too broken, too shattered to put back together. As it was, they went at it like a bull in a china shop. It takes months to reprogram someone like that. The way he was brutalised at the start, the number of broken bones he’d suffered, the cracked skull, internal bleeding; they weren’t being careful. Some of the damage they caused in the first twenty four hours or so got infected. If you’re going to cause vomiting and diarrhoea, and you’re not going to let your subject clean up properly, you make damn sure the passages are free of injury or you’re going to get infection, illness and eventually death.’

Jack closed his eyes for a moment, taking a steadying breath. ‘Didn’t you say you found broad spectrum antibiotics in his blood after we got back to Babylon 5?’

‘Yes. But it’s hit or miss with those. Like playing Russian roulette with his life.’

Getting angry was pointless, Jack knew that, and the hatred he felt towards the bastards who’d been behind it all wasn’t new. But there was another element to it now, a sense of it feeling incredibly personal. 

*

They roused John and took him with them to lunch. He didn’t mind, he said, about the smells and the food; he liked the company and the starship mess hall atmosphere; sitting in the middle of hundreds of soldiers who were on his side made him feel safer than he had in a couple of years. He still wasn’t hungry, but he did promise he was feeling better than he had been.

‘I hear I missed all the fun last night,’ Stephen suggested, and John laughed.

‘There was a general alert. Klaxons going off all over the ship. I have no idea how you slept through that.’

‘After eight years on Babylon 5, I’ve learnt to sleep through anything up to, and including, a full scale war. Having said that, I would have loved to get a look at whatever it was.’

‘It was a slimy green blob,’ John supplied helpfully. 

‘There’s a vid of it,’ Jack told him. ‘Ask Captain Paver, she’ll get you access.’

‘Thank you. Speaking of your command staff… your chief medical officer….’

Jack immediately held up his hands. ‘In three days she’ll be Kate’s chief medical officer. Ask her.’

‘I was just after some advice….’

‘Stephen, my longest relationship lasted three weeks, two days and seven hours. I’m the last person you should be asking for dating advice.’

He realised both Stephen and John were staring at him, open-mouthed. ‘You are kidding?’

‘No.’

‘That’s…. Three weeks, two days?’

‘And seven hours. Don’t forget those. They were some really good hours.’

‘How is that even possible?’

‘I’m career military! Before I ended up on the Aggy a couple of weeks before a major battle, I spent ten years on an explorer ship out on the rim. Who am I going to date?’

‘Weren’t there almost six hundred people on the Cortez?’

‘Jesus, I wouldn’t date someone on my own ship! What would happen when we broke up? There would be nowhere to hide.’

‘That sounds like an excuse to me,’ Stephen muttered. John was just looking at him, part suspicion, part curiosity, and the doctor saw it. He frowned. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been waiting for him,’ he pointed at John with his fork, ‘all these years?’

Jack gave a bark of laughter. ‘Christ, no!’ Then he leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Why? Is that what he told you?’

Stephen shook his head, seemingly a little confused by Jack’s response. He glanced at John, momentarily worried he might have caused some offence, but his expression hadn’t changed.

Jack knew that looked, but he had to ask. ‘What?’

‘If you didn’t get together with anyone on the Cortez, who did you date for three weeks, two days and seven hours?’ Sometimes he forgot how perceptive his old friend was. ‘When were you the same place for that length of time?’ He could see John had already worked it out. ‘Shore leave’s only ever two weeks. Re-supplies last a couple of days. And the Cortez didn’t make a lot of planetfall.’

‘Okay, okay.’ 

Stephen was looking on, still trying to catch up. So John filled him in.

‘When the Cortez came to Babylon 5 three years ago, just after she left and jumped to hyperspace…’

‘That’s right,’ Stephen remembered, ‘there some sort sort of malfunction. John sent a squadron out to find you and bring you back.’

‘You returned to the station and spent, what was it? Three weeks and three days waiting for repairs to be completed? We had so many meals together over that time, you didn’t say a word.’

Slightly relieved John wasn’t pressing for an answer to ‘who’, Jack shrugged. ‘Relationship’s probably pushing it.’

He met John’s gaze, and his breath caught at what he saw in those expressive eyes. But it wasn’t until they got up to leave the mess hall that John leaned in and murmured, ‘you only had to ask.’ He was too old for regrets, but if he could have gone back in time at that moment, he’d have been back there in an instant.

*

‘Listen up!’ The low level chatter in the room dropped to silence almost instantly at Jack’s words. ‘A scouting party has already gone on ahead to check out the area, make sure it’s safe, switch on the power and the air filtration units. Once they give the go ahead, the second team will take a shuttle down to the cargo bay on the south side of the facility. The perimeter is shot to hell, but there’s a pressurised corridor from the cargo bay to the staging area. The main facility is made up of three parts: two parallel corridors running through the centre, ringed by admin officers, labs and some sort of medical facility. There are four holding cells at the south end of each corridor, and eight interrogation cells further up. The primary task of the B-team, that’s most of you, is to go room by room and retrieve the bodies of those killed in the attacks. Each body is to be bagged, brought on board for identification and will be shipped back to Earth. Be aware, we will have Captain John Sheridan with us.’ He turned to where John was standing a little way behind him, smiling when John waved. ‘He was a guest of President Clarke inside that facility for a week. If you see him, be respectful, give him space. Move on, go back later. 

‘Doctor Franklin and I have been tasked with collecting all the records and files pertaining to prisoners kept in the facility. So that’s what we’ll be doing in the admin block. When, and only when, we’re all clear of the facility, will the C-team proceed inside and set a series of explosives in the circular corridor. Once everyone’s safely back on board, we’ll blow the site from here and go home. None of this timers and countdown bullshit, just in case. Any questions?’

There was a chorus of, ‘No, Sir,’s. 

‘Good. B-team be ready to go in thirty minutes.’

Everyone dispersed, orders received, places to be. Jack turned his attention to John. 

‘Couple of ground rules, okay? While we’re down there, you don’t apologise for anything that happens. If you need to scream, scream. If you need to break things, don’t hold back. We’ll give you space but if you need us, we’re there for you, whatever you need to say, or do…. I know it’s not going to be pretty. Stephen and I will go blow things up later if we have to, but while we’re down in that facility, whatever you need, we’re there, you just have to say the word. Promise me.’

John swallowed. ‘I promise.’

‘Okay. Good.’ He wished he felt better about this, but he didn’t. Now they were here, the very last thing he wanted to do was to take John down to the place where he was tortured and make him relive it all over again. He couldn’t think why he’d imagined this would be a good idea in the first place. 

He felt a hand on his arm and blinked. John was gazing at him, a tight smile on his face but warmth in his eyes. ‘Jack. It’s okay. This was my choice, my decision. This isn’t on you. Whatever happens down there, we’ll deal with it, and then we’ll go home.’

‘I promised Michael I’d take you back in one piece.’

John chuckled. ‘You will. If I was going to break, I’d have done it the last time I was there. It’s just a place, just empty rooms.’

Jack so desperately wanted to hug him. ‘They won’t be empty, not all of them. Not for you.’

‘They will be by the time we leave.’

*

The Babylon 5 marketplace was busy. The cloaked figure approached a trader whose name he’d been given by several sources. 

Leaning close to the man in black, making sure they couldn’t be overheard, he murmured, ‘I’ve been told you’re the person to see about certain… Babcom codes.”

The trader didn’t lift his head but he paused in the shuffling of the playing cards in his hands. 

‘That would depend on what sort of codes you’re looking for.’

‘Command staff location codes.’

‘Those codes are new. Command staff location restrictions were only put in place a couple of months ago. They’re difficult to come by, so it’s going to cost you.’

‘How much?’

A figure was named, a credit chit handed over, the funds deducted. Then the man in black spread the playing cards out on the table in front of him, and with his fingertips he slid sixteen of them out of the pack very deliberately, one by one, so that the cloaked figure had time to note the numbers in the corners of each card.

Once he had all sixteen, the man walked away. With a smile, Zack gathered his wares and closed up the small, temporary stall.

*

The first team from the Agamemnon got the generators running, fixed one of the two air filtration units, and plugged a hole in the corridor connecting the cargo bay to the main facility. They could see a transport ship still docked at the main entrance, one side of it torn open. The only means of escape for those who had been here when the attack had begun had been effectively destroyed. 

They blew the main doors of the facility and checked the air was breathable before calling back to the Agamemnon to say it was safe.

The trip down in the shuttle was bumpy. They walked the corridor that ran between the loading bay and the main entrance to the staging area, flanked by armed soldiers just in case, but there were no surprises. They had masks just to be on the safe side, but although the air tasted stale, it was breathable. Inside the main facility there was no sound except for the hum from the generators and the heated water running through large pipes running overhead. It was cold, but not freezing.

They came to the main guard post. Stephen recognised it from their last flying visit. The bodies of the men they’d killed on their way out were gone, but the grey concrete floor was stained with blood. One of their team moved behind the main control console and found the right switches to bring on the lights. Bright strips snapped on above them, illuminating the corridors ahead of them. 

‘Find the master override,’ Jack instructed. ‘Open all the doors.’

A second or two later there was a hollow clanging noise all around them as every internal lock disengaged and automatic metal doors sprung open. 

‘We’re in.’

Beyond the guards’ station, two long corridors ran straight ahead, while the circular one curved away to the left and right. Directly in front of them, there was a heavy metal door standing open. While the team split into two to start their search for the dead, Jack, Stephen and John stepped cautiously through into the room. The walls were tiled, there were metal grates in the floor, strip lights and what looked like jets in the ceiling. Heavy metal rings were welded at regular intervals underneath them.

For a horrible moment, Stephen thought they were inside a gas chamber. Until John spoke.

‘I don’t remember being brought here. The beat me unconscious in the bar. I woke… in a dark cell. I was in restraints, just my wrists. There were… five, maybe six men in the cell with me, and the moment I opened my eyes, they started in on me. I couldn’t fight back. I remember hitting the wall a couple of times, then the floor. One of them… stamped on the side of my throat and I lost consciousness again.

‘When I came to, I was still in the cell, but the door was open and they dragged me from there across the hall into here. I was stripped and chained to one of those rings.’ His voice wavered but he kept going. ‘They turned on the water. It was… freezing and scorching at the same time, so powerful it felt like needles on my skin. I tried to curl up, protect myself, but they kept... kicking my legs out from under me. They scrubbed at me with a long-handled brush of some kind. When it was over… they put me in chains, walked me through to a holding cell, threw me inside... I tripped, that's the last thing I remember for a while.’

Stephen felt a sudden and overwhelming desire to hurt someone. He wanted to be anywhere else right at that. He walked back out into the corridor and took a deep breath. Jack and John had followed, and when he could, he asked both of them, ‘Are you still sure about this?’

John nodded quickly. ‘Yes. I’m okay. You two… go do what you’re here to do.’

‘In a while,’ Jack promised, but he stayed back when John headed off along one of the corridors.

With no little trepidation, John stopped at the first open door. The memory in the wet room had been so vivid, but then he’d been mostly lucid at the start. The tranq had worn off by the time they’d reached the facility and they’d relied on restraints and his injuries rather than drugs to keep him from escaping. 

He knew what was inside the cell to the immediate right. That was the cell where he’d woken, where he’d been passed between them like a punching bag. The lights in there were dim, but he knew his blood was on the floor. The holding cells were slightly further along the narrow, high corridor. 

He stopped and read the writing etched into the wall beside the door. HOLDING CELL 1. Peering inside, he could see the bright strip lights set into the ceiling, reflected off the whitewashed concrete floor. This wasn’t the right place and he turned, approached HOLDING CELL 2 on the other side of the corridor. There were the same bright lights, the same shiny floor, only there were stains on this one, brownish yellow in colour. And the smell... it was bad enough at the door, but when he stepped inside, the stench dropped him to his knees; the rank mix of vomit and blood, faeces and urine, semen and sweat. Trapped inside the locked room for months, it found its way into John’s nostrils, over his lips and down his throat. He retched, stomach cramping, but he had nothing to throw up.

Stephen was suddenly beside him, one hand on his back, the other rubbing something under his nose. ‘Breathe.’

‘I can’t….’

‘Yes, you can. Just breathe.’ The unbearable smell was slowly but surely replaced with the citrusy scent of lemons. He blinked tears from his eyes. ‘That’s it.’ Stephen gave him time, looking around at the grey walls and off-white floor stained with blood and other bodily fluids. ‘This is where they they put you?’

He nodded once. ‘For… around twenty hours. I think. I tried to keep count but it was difficult and I don’t know how long I was unconscious at the start. This is where it started.’

Where he was repeatedly kicked and punched and electrocuted, where they stamped on his genitals and raped him with batons. In here, the pain inflicted on him had been excruciating. In here, there had been no gentleness, only brutality. But he understood what had been done to him in this room, recognised it for what it was. 

‘I’m okay, Stephen,’ he murmured. ‘Just… give me a minute? Please?’

The doctor obviously didn’t want to leave, but finally he nodded, helped John to his feet and squeezed his arm briefly. ‘You call if you need us.’

*

Stephen found Jack in what looked like a control suite. He was sitting at a console, staring at the screen in front of him.

‘Can’t get in?’

‘I’m in. They gave me the passwords. At least, they said they did.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘The only records I can find are for the dates John was here.’ He tapped the screen with a fingertip and read what was appearing there. ‘Sheridan, John J, entry 10-23-61, med file #00001-00007, vid #00001-00007 file incomplete.’

‘Where are the rest? How can John’s be the first files?’

Jack tapped the med file link and it brought up a list, 00001 to 00007. He tapped the top entry and watched details appear; letters, numbers, what seemed to be times and measurements.

‘What is all this?’

Stephen leaned over his shoulder to read it. ‘I don’t know what the first few lines are, but these here are dosages. This one, fluxafaxine, is a powerful psychotropic drug, banned on Earth. BZ is a non-lethal poison that’s been used by the military for years. We found traces of it in John’s system, we think it was what they used to poison his food. These are high doses.’

Jack went back to the main menu, selecting the second set of numbers. He got the same list, 00001 to 00007, and tapped on the top one. His stomach lurched as a video file opened on an empty room, moments before John was thrown inside; naked, shackled, stumbling, falling, hitting his head on the whitewashed concrete, knocking himself unconscious. Two guards kicked him in the back and in the stomach, grunting as they did it, leaving him lying utterly still. 

Jack hit the stop button as soon as he could move his hand. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage, pulse racing, tears in his eyes. ‘Fuck.’ Just those few seconds had made him feel nauseous. Judging by the size of the files, every second of every minute of every hour of seven fucking days was stored here. 

He looked up at Stephen and for a few seconds they stared at one another in silence. ‘I can’t watch these,’ he said honestly. ‘But if you think it would help to know….’

Stephen shook his head. ‘I can’t. Even if I could, he’d never forgive me. He was devastated enough knowing I’d seen the memory Thomas stole from him in MedLab. All this… it’s a violation of a privacy that’s already been ripped apart.’ 

‘No one should see these. There’s no way I’m taking them back to Earth.’

‘Destroy them. All of them. Take a copy of the med files. It’ll help to know what they gave him. I may be able to target his treatment.’ 

Jack nodded, looking around. ‘The question is, where are the records for the other prisoners who were interrogated here?’

*

When he thought he was ready to face the rest of it, John left the holding room and walked slowly until he came to the first interrogation cell. Standing in the doorway, he sniffed the air, and smelt only bleach. This cell had been thoroughly cleaned. He continued along the corridor, found cell 3, and stepped inside.

The stench of stale vomit made his eyes water, but he forced himself to go further in, concentrating on the lemon scent that was still coming from whatever Stephen had rubbed under his nose. 

The damned chair sat like some macabre throne facing the control panel. The seat in which his third interrogator had been sitting in, when Stephen or Michael had blown his head apart, was lying on its back. There was blood splatter on the floor and the walls, brain matter on the console. 

He ignored it, walking over to the chair. He’d spent days trapped in it, or ones exactly like it. He ran his fingertips over the hard, unforgiving metal arms and the open restraints. He’d fought to free himself from the first one, rubbed his wrists and ankles raw doing it. The edges were rough, they’d cut into his skin; lacerations so deep they’d left scars he’d carry for the rest of his life. The neck restraint had thin padding around the edges, presumably so he couldn’t cut his own throat on it, but he remembered one of the guards pressing his head forward, cutting off his airway, suffocating him until he passed out. 

There was patch of yellowish discolouration, tinged with dried blood, on the hard metal seat, from when he’d pissed himself between electrocutions. He remembered it hurting, the urine burning as it passed through his dick. He was almost thankful the food had been poisoned, because at least it had come back up through his mouth. There were worse things.

An empty saline bag hung from the pole that was attached to the chair. He thought Stephen must have removed the needle from his arm during the rescue, because it hung at the end of the tube above a dried stain on the floor. 

A little way back, still standing, was the lamp they’d shone into his face, into his eyes, for hours on end, stopping him from sleeping, scrambling his nervous system, keeping his brain from its usual cycle. Driving him ever closer to a lonely death. 

‘Johnny?’

He turned, saw Jack standing in the doorway, and lost it. He’d imagined he was okay, seeing the instruments of his torture and the evidence of its toll on his body. But he wasn’t. Tears were running over his face before he even realised he was crying. 

Jack walked up to him, put his arms around him, and held him. ‘Let go. Let it out.’

John sobbed, harsh sounds, gulping deep breaths. He clung to Jack, fingers clawing at his clothes. The force of it drove tremors through him and he thought if Jack wasn’t holding him up, he wouldn’t still be standing. 

It didn’t last long. He didn’t have the strength to keep it up. He kept his face buried in his friend's shoulder while his breath stuttered, but eventually he lifted his head and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, feeling a little better, like he could breathe easier. He stepped away and Jack let him go, keeping one hand on his back, anchoring him while he tried to breathe normally.

The lights in the ceiling were bringing the stark room into bright relief. Further back, behind the chair, the floor was stained a reddish brown. By the time he’d been brought into this cell, he’d had nothing clean to eat for days. There was only blood and vomit in here, the only things they could get out of him. He felt a strange surge of pride at realising that. 

‘I was alone,’ he murmured softly. ‘I didn’t know if anyone was coming. The first time around, I clung to idea of just getting through it, surviving. I knew my fingers and my wrist, other bones too, were broken. My head ached constantly. I was in so much pain but I thought if I could just hang on…. By the third time, I could barely think straight. Every… breath was agony. Everything hurt. My clothes were filthy, sticking to me, I could smell myself.’

‘You held on, John. You survived. Every man who hurt you in this place is dead. You were stronger than they were, stronger than they thought you were. Stronger than all of us.’

Leaning into Jack’s touch, he let himself be lead out of the room, out into the corridor. But he asked him to wait while he took a couple of steps further up. 

’When they moved me from the first interrogation room to the second, before I even knew it would be an ongoing cycle, they strapped me to a gurney and there was a minister reading me my last rights.’

When he looked back over his shoulder, wide brown eyes were staring at him. ‘You thought you were going to be executed?’ 

John nodded. He looked away again, not quite able to deal with the expression on Jack’s face or the emotion radiating from him. ‘They told me… there was a confession they could prove I’d made before my death. I thought I was going to die, that everything would be undone, everyone I loved would suffer because I couldn’t hold out….’

He took another deep breath, determined not to fall apart again. 

‘You did hold out. You gave Stephen, Lyta and Michael the time they needed to find you and bring you home.’

John nodded, acknowledging it. Describing the memory out loud had helped. He rejoined Jack and they walked in silence to the start point, warm hand at the small of his back. Stephen was there, leaning against the concrete wall next to the open door of the first holding cell.

They’d obviously found something that was bothering them. ‘Are you up to talking?’ Jack asked him gently, and John nodded. ‘Okay.’ He seemed hesitant. ‘When you were here, did you see any other prisoners?’

John opened his mouth to say yes, but actually, he wasn’t sure now that he had. The Drazi he thought they’d killed had turned out to be another interrogator, so how could he be sure if anything he thought he’d seen was real?

‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘Why?’

‘We’ll show you.’ Stephen led the way across to the second corridor of cells. ‘Look inside.’ 

Tentatively, John peered into each cell, moving between them. Four holding rooms, eight interrogation rooms. All clean, all smelling of dust and paint, of stale air but not of excrement or sick. There were no blood stains on the floors. The chairs in the interrogation cells looked unused.

‘I don’t understand,’ John murmured when they reached the end of the corridor. He looked from Stephen to Jack. ‘What are you telling me?’

‘We think… there was only ever you. We don’t think there were ever any other prisoners here.’

John couldn’t, wouldn’t believe that. ‘No.’

‘We think this place was set up just to break you.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No. God, no….’ He felt sick, suddenly cold. His mouth went dry and he could hear a buzzing in his head, getting louder while the world around him narrowed to a single pinpoint of light before he passed out.

*

It was late on Babylon 5. 

Approaching the nearest Babcom unit, the man in the cloak quoted the security code he’d purchased earlier in the day, and requested the location of Captain John Sheridan.

The computer responded, ‘Captain John Sheridan is in his quarters.’

Zack waited until he’d walked away, heading for the transport tube, before linking in. 

‘He’s on his way, Chief.’

Garibaldi's tinny voice came back, ‘Thanks, Zack.’

Inside Sheridan's quarters, Dr Hobbs sat patiently while Michael paced. On the coffee table stood two jars containing the devices that Stephen had removed from John's body. 

Outside, out of sight, a small security team waited for the order to close the net.

The cloaked man stepped off the tube and walked along the Blue Sector hallway towards the Captain's quarters. As he walked, he took a small transmitter from an inside pocket. He didn’t stop outside the door of Sheridan’s room, but as he passed he pressed down on the small button at the top of the transmitter and the silent signal was sent.

Inside Sheridan’s quarters, inside the jars, both devices activated simultaneously, releasing a translucent liquid that settled harmlessly around them.

Activating his link, Michael gave the command.

The man in the cloak was surrounded before he knew it. One of the security team grabbed his wrists, stopping him from doing something he'd regret, while a second got a strong arm around his throat, pulling his head back, forcing him to concentrate on breathing.

Approaching them, Michael’s hand hovered over the PPG at his waist. When he was close enough, he pushed the hood back from the man’s head and looked into the furious eyes of a stranger. 

‘Why?’ he asked.

The man spat at him. And that was all he needed to know.

*

John came round slowly, still nauseous, hard floor beneath him, EarthForce jacket folded up and placed beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. He ached from the shoulders up and his mouth was dry. He wasn’t sure that sitting up was a good idea, but someone gently lifted his head and poured a little water over his lips. He reached for the glass and took it, hands shaking, drinking cautiously.

He opened his eyes and saw Stephen sitting cross-legged on the floor next to him. ‘That was… just embarrassing,’ he muttered.

‘You remember what happened?’

He nodded once, head warning him not to do that again, and closed his eyes for a moment. He had an idea of where he was, and didn’t want to look around until he was ready and able to get up and walk out.

‘Are we done here?’ He asked eventually, when he was fairly sure his stomach wasn’t going to try to throw up the water he’d just drunk.

‘More or less. They’re loading the bodies onto the first transport. Twenty minutes and we’ll be off.’

He gingerly manoeuvred himself into a sitting position. ‘How many?’

‘Twenty three. Most of them security, a medical officer and three men in black suits we think were interrogators.’ 

John nodded. ‘I don’t understand why they did this.’

‘To make you believe it. The torture, the interrogation was very real. Their aim was to break you as quickly as possible, physically and mentally. They didn’t have much time once they had you, but they had plenty of time to prepare. I don’t know if this place was built for you, or if they just put it to that use. But there’s no evidence of any other prisoner having ever been here. The only cells that have been used are they ones you were in.’

John dropped his aching head forward. He wanted to be away from there, on the Aggy, or better still back on Babylon 5. 

‘Where’s Jack?’ He knew the answer, he just wanted to hear it confirmed.

‘Arranging the transports. He won’t be long. He wants off this rock almost as much as you do.’

Finally he felt strong enough to look around. The room was clean, unused, empty, with its whitewashed floors, concrete walls and strip lights in the ceiling. It wasn’t evil, wasn’t threatening. It just was. But something caught his eye in the very far corner; a blinking red light. His stomach lurched.

‘There are cameras.’

‘One in every room.’

‘They were… recording.’ Stephen nodded. Another wave of nausea rolled over him. ‘I remember. You found the vids.’ 

‘We saw a couple of seconds. When he realised what they were, Jack turned it off. We didn’t watch them. We couldn’t. We don’t need to see it all to know what they did to you.’

He couldn’t even look at Stephen as he begged. ‘Please tell me you’ve destroyed them.’ The thought of them existing wasn’t one he was sure he could live with.

‘Oh yeah. Jack and I indulged in some old fashioned destruction therapy. We’ve pretty much smashed every data crystal, server, computer terminal and screen we could find. The only things that are leaving here are us, those bodies, and your medical files; just lists of everything they gave you, all the drugs and toxins. It should help me to dial back the effects for you, keep the nightmares and the sickness to a minimum. And in an hour or so, Jack is going to blow this place to hell. ‘

‘Do you think he’d let me give the order?’

‘John, I think he would let you do anything you wanted.’

*

Susan placed a call through to the president’s office and an hour later, she called them back. She and Michael had waited. They had time to wait.

‘Commander Ivanova, Mr Garibaldi. I was rather expecting to speak to Captain Sheridan.’

‘I’m afraid he’s not available right now.’ Michael sounded less than apologetic. 

‘My assistant said you had a message for me.’

‘We do. Well, more of a surprise.’ He brought the ID of the man they’d arrested up on the screen. ‘We’ve arrested this guy, who insists on calling himself The Black Death, but in actual fact is Nicholas Fallon. He has EarthGov credentials and top security clearance.’ Neither he nor Susan missed the flash of recognition of Luchenko's face.

‘I see you know him.’

‘What's going on, Commander?’ She pointedly addressed the question to Susan, who was happy to explain.

‘We're charging Mr Fallon with the attempted murder of Captain Sheridan.’ 

‘I do hope you have the evidence to back up this charge.’ Her voice was as hard as nails.

Michael smiled and held up one of the jars containing a delivery device and its spilt payload. In the other hand, he held an evidence bag containing the transmitter.

‘Doctor Franklin found three of these nasty little bastards inside Sheridan’s intestine.’ He tapped the jar with his index finger. ‘The goo is a mix of toxins and psychotropic drugs, not lethal individually, but deadly if they’d been activated together.’

‘This man was not acting on behalf of my office, or our Government, no matter what you might think.’

‘You're telling me you knew nothing of a plot within EarthGov to assassinate the Captain?’

‘That's exactly what I'm telling you. So, if you’ll have the prisoner placed on the first Earth-bound ship….’

Michael and Susan shook their heads in unison. ‘We don’t think that’s a good idea. Too many prisoners have gone missing on Earth-bound ships.’

She couldn’t deny that. Clarke’s regime had 'misplaced' countless people who’d represented a threat to him. 

‘What did you have in mind?’

Michael appeared to consider his options. ‘We could just space him.’

‘Mr Garibaldi -‘

‘Okay, okay. He's going to be our guest for a short while. The Captain has a few decisions to make. Once he's made them, and he's happy with the outcome, I'll hand this guy over to two of your men, face to face, with your personal assurance that I'll be seeing coverage of his trial on ISN within three months.’

She smiled wanly. ‘You certainly know how to drive a hard bargain. You should have been a politician.’

Michael shook his head. ‘I never could stand the bullshit.’

*

Out in the corridor, there was constant movement. It was nice, nice to know he wasn’t alone, that there were soldiers out there trained to kill. 

As he sat on the floor of the clean holding cell, John remembered the light, the constant, persistent light. And the noise; high pitched whines that echoed around his skull long after they’d been switched off; recordings in a loop, telling him to confess, to give up, and the pain would stop. He remembered the long, sharp needle in his arm, and he remembered them taking it away. He remembered not knowing what would kill him first, but being certain he was going to die.

‘John?’ He blinked. Stephen’s hand was on his arm, gently rubbing. ‘You zoned out there for a moment.’

‘S-‘ He stopped himself, just in time. No apologies, not down here. ‘I’m okay.’

‘Really?’

John considered his answer. There had been enough lies told down here already. 

‘I’m so scared, Stephen. It’s… terrifying to think that there were people who hated me so much, this is what they planned for me, that some of those people might still be out there. I’ve been clinging to the idea that it wasn’t personal. That the... brutality was just a part of the routine: isolation, degradation, subjugation. Even when it was happening, the thought that it had happened to others.... It helped somehow. I know how that sounds.’

‘It sounds human. We cope better knowing we’re not the only ones, knowing we’re not alone.’

‘But I was. Even when I realised the execution of that Drazi was faked, I never once thought it was all fake because it felt so real.’

‘For you, it was real. Your injuries were very real. But you’re not alone now. Even if there are still people out there... they’re not going to hurt you. I think someone’s going to make sure of that.’

‘Hey,’ Jack appeared in doorway. ‘We’re ready. C-team’s on its way down to set the explosives.’ He came into the room, couched down next to John and put a hand on his back. ‘Are you ready to go?’

John looked at him and nodded. ‘Yeah.’ They helped him up. And while his stomach lurched, he remained standing. A memory came back into his brain, unbidden. ‘I remember… how I broke my toe. Just before they came in to dress me, before I was taken to the first interrogation, I managed to stand up. I couldn’t free myself. I knew I was in serious trouble and I kicked the wall in sheer frustration.’

‘You broke your own toe?’

He nodded. ‘At least that’s one they can’t take credit for.’

*

‘Transport docked, C-team is aboard. Ready when you are, Captain.’

On the command deck of the Agamemnon, Jack turned to John. ‘It’s all yours.’

John tried to put all the thanks, all the relief, he was feeling into his expression when he looked at him. Then he turned to the waiting crew.

‘Prime the explosives.’

A pause, then, ‘Explosives primed. ‘

‘On my count, detonate. Three. Two. One. Go.’

There was a delay, no more than a second, before they saw the explosion as a small ball of light on the planet’s surface. From the ship it looked almost inconsequential. But down there, the noise, the vibrations, the fire, the smoke, the rubble... it would have been a lot more impressive. 

‘Facility has been destroyed.’

‘Thank you,’ John addressed the crew. ‘All of you. Captain Maynard?’

‘Set course for Babylon 5.’

*

Jack found John in his quarters later on. He’d compiled a report and submitted it to General Ryan. There were gaps, and he was sure Ryan would read between the lines. But the general was a friend of John’s. He wouldn’t ask questions, because the possible need to leave those gaps was probably why he’d asked Jack to lead the mission in the first place. 

Stephen had spent some time helping identify the bodies they’d brought back. Then he’d asked the ship’s chief medical officer to dinner, even though the only place to go was the mess hall. It was Stephen’s first date in years, and Jack had arranged a little privacy for them, as best he could under the circumstances of 800 hungry, boisterous soldiers and crew members also needing to get fed.

He was surprised to find John in his room. Initially he’d checked the observation deck, because that’s where he’d spent most of the outbound journey. Stephen had warned that he may be a little more brittle for a while as he processed what had happened, what he’d remembered and what they now knew. But he looked composed when he looked up from whatever he was reading. 

‘Everything okay?’

Jack nodded. He was used to that being his line. ‘I’m hoping we’ll get back without more aliens trying to mate with the ship.’

‘And then?’

‘And then all this is Kate’s and a new adventure awaits.’

‘You’re sure this is what you want?’

Jack perched on the end of the bed. ‘I know the last time I was on Babylon 5, before the war, I was... less than positive about you having been posted there. But you were sure you were there for a reason, and you proved that time and time again. It’s time I started to trust that the universe knows what it’s doing.’ 

John looked more than a little skeptical. ‘In that case, I hope the universe likes you better than it likes me.’ He put down the pad. ‘Thank you, for asking me to come along.’

‘Are you sure? I mean... it didn’t look easy, being down there, not from where I was standing.’

‘It wasn’t. At least I feel like some of the... power of the place has been taken away. It was hell when I was there, they made it hell, but the building was just a building, an empty set of rooms. The interrogators were just people. Vicious, cruel, violent sadists. But still just people. Stephen told me about the vids. Thank you for destroying them.’

‘There was no way they were going back to Earth.’

Jack lapsed into silence, but he’d come here for a reason; he owed this man an explanation and the last thing he wanted was for John to think he’d changed his mind because of what he’d witnessed. 

‘Listen, I know when we talked we said we'd wait until Mars was behind us. There were things I want to say to you, things I’ve been thinking about telling you for a weeks now.’ He watched John’s expression carefully. ‘I still want to say those things, if you still want to hear them, but I need a few hours. I honestly hadn’t realised how bad it would be down there. Those vids… just the couple of seconds we saw were horrific. I am... angry doesn't come close to how I feel about what they put you through. Seeing that place, knowing what happened just by virtue of Stephen having walked me through your injuries when we got you back to B5.... I probably have a fairly accurate idea of events. I need to process that. I know this is your pain and not mine, I know I don’t deserve to ask-‘

‘Jack. Stop. I do want to hear what you have to say to me. Nothing that happened down there changed how I feel about you. But I understand, honestly. And I can wait. I feel like I've waited years already. Take some time. We can talk tomorrow.’

‘This isn’t what I’d had in mind.’

‘I know. But it is what it is.’ 

‘Are you going to be all right? Leaving you alone tonight of all nights....’

‘I’m not alone.’ John's smile was strange. Like somehow he’d managed to find some sort of peace down there while Jack had found the exact opposite. 

‘Don’t hesitate, if you need me.’

‘I won’t. Go. I’ll see you in the morning.’

*

Stephen’s route to his quarters took him close to the observation deck. He was wide awake, and it wasn’t often he got a chance to stare out into hyperspace and wonder at the strange power of it. Inside the large room it was dark and empty, or so he thought until he realised there was a figure lying on the flat bench in front of the glass. It shifted, restlessly, and he recognised it.

‘John?’ Eyes adjusting, he moved into the semi darkness, and the figure lying on the bench sat up. ‘Are you okay?’

He looked cold, drawing his knees up to his chest as best he could, wrapping his arms loosely around them, pulling the sleeves down over his hands. ‘I couldn’t sleep. Too many nightmares.’

‘After today, I’m not surprised.’ Stephen sat down on the bench, close to John’s feet, noticing he was wearing socks but no shoes. ‘Where’s Jack?’

‘Processing.’

‘Processing….’ It took a moment for that to sink in, and when it did, he couldn’t believe it. ‘He left you on our own? Tonight of all nights? I thought he...’

‘He does. And I do too. But I can’t deal with him looking at me and seeing the man he saw on that vid, even if it was only a couple of seconds of... interrogation?’ He actually looked hopeful.

‘The holding cell. Back at the beginning.’

‘Jesus.’ John shook his head wearily and looked away for a moment, out into the shifting void of hyperspace. ‘No wonder….’

‘You shouldn’t have been alone tonight.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re not fine. Being back there was always going to cause a mental shift. You’ll consciously remember more, but there’ll be a lot for your unconscious mind to unpack too. Given the level and type of psychotropics we know are in your system, that’s likely to result in flashbacks, hallucinations, definitely more nightmares, although I suspect - given what you’ve been through - that at least some of what you’re experiencing are more likely night terrors.’

‘There’s a difference?’

‘You’re waking with elevated blood pressure, pulse rate, increased adrenaline levels…. We need to keep an eye on it, because we might need to intervene if it’s causing you physical harm.’ He lay a gentle hand on John’s foot. ‘For now, do you want me to give you something to help you sleep?’

‘No. No more drugs.’

‘Still feeling sick?’

‘A little.’

‘I’ll run some tests when we get home. Now I’ve got a better idea of what they gave you, I should be able to give you something more targeted.’

‘Thank you. For everything. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.’

‘I would never have let that happen.’ He gazed at John, seeing the exhaustion there, the weight of the day, and decided Jack Maynard deserved a punch in the mouth for abandoning him to the nightmares.

‘What you doing up this late, anyway?’

‘Dinner. With Maise, the chief medical officer.’ 

John smiled, looking happy for him. ‘It’s o-three-hundred.’

‘Dinner turned into more.’

‘And then you… left?’

‘She has an early start. And neither of us have any illusions that it was anything but sex. Really, really good sex.’

‘Hey, at least one of us is getting some.’ John dropped his feet to the floor. ‘I’ll go back to bed. Try again.’

‘Let me come with you. At least I can stop the nightmares before they take hold.’

He looked too tired to argue.

*

There was a certain level of respect to be afforded a captain on the command deck of his own ship, in front of his own crew. So Stephen waited until Jack left the deck and reached his office before confronting him.

‘What the hell were you thinking last night?’

Jack stopped just inside the room, eyes widening, hands raised in surrender. ‘What did I do last night?’

‘You left.’

‘Left…’ It dawned on him why the doctor was so angry. ‘Right. Yes. I’m sorry about that.’

‘I’m not the one you should be apologising to.’

‘I know. I was going to find him this morning, say how sorry I was. Maybe take flowers.’

‘You think this is a joke?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, dropping his hands to his side. ‘It’s so fucking far from funny…. By the time we got back on board, whenever I closed my eyes I kept seeing that vid replay in my head. Those bastards pushing him naked, chained, shivering, into that bleak place, his head hitting the floor, kicking him as he lay unconscious…. Every time I looked at John, I could only see the man who needed me, needed anyone, to help him but there was no one there. For seven days, of brutality, of terror and pain….’ 

All the anger melted away. ‘Jack, I’m sorry….’

‘No. You shouldn’t be sorry. I honestly thought I’d be able to deal with whatever we found down there, because John needed me to. I never imagined it would be so… inhumane.’

‘I know it’s difficult. When Thomas showed me that memory in MedLab, I wanted to tear apart the people who did that to him. But they’re all dead. All of them. There’s no one left to take revenge on. There’s only John, and he needs us. He needs you. Please don’t abandon him.’

‘You have my word. I lay awake all night, regretting everything, from agreeing to the mission in the first place, giving him the option of coming along, letting him go down there, seeing that recording, allowing him to remember…. Most of all, not staying with him last night.’

Stephen sighed. ‘As angry as I was with you, I think you did the right thing. All the right things. Accepting the mission, being the one to go. As bad as it is that we saw what we saw, it would have been so much worse if it had been someone else, some other captain who might have done as they were told and taken everything back to Earth. What if those vids had been leaked? I don’t think he’d have survived that. Destroying it all was the best thing we could have done. And I think, in the long term, having gone back there will help.’

‘But not in the short term.’

‘He didn’t sleep. I found him at three this morning on the observation deck, took him back to his quarters and stayed with him. He had nightmare after nightmare. Every time I thought it was over, that he was managing to sleep, he had another. In the end, I sedated him. It wasn’t what he wanted but… he needed some respite.’

‘Fuck. I am such an asshole. I should have stayed.’

‘Actually… I think you were right not to. At the start, he was looking to you for safety and comfort because he knew he could trust you. But that’s changing. He’s looking to you for something else now, and while there are going to be times, more often than not, when he’ll turn to you because maybe he doesn’t trust anyone else, you’re both adding another layer to it.’

‘We didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan for this to happen and I know he didn’t. It’s never been like this between us before. It feels like something just suddenly clicked into place.’

‘For him too. Not that he’s said anything, not outright. But I’ve known him a while, long enough to hear the things he doesn’t say.’

Jack moved further into his office, sat up on his desk. ‘What about Michael?’

‘What about him?’

‘They were lovers, before all this.’

‘Before all this. Look, Jack, Michael’s my friend. I know he wasn’t responsible for what happened, but I’ve nursed John back from the brink of death and more than anything I want to see him happy, healthy and content. I want to see him living in the peaceful beauty of Minbar, away from Earth, away from Babylon 5, away from the pain and suffering of the last few years.’ He paused. ‘I would love just to be able to stop for a second or two, in the middle of the day, to think about him, to know he’s happy and loved, and to carry on in the absolute certainty that he’s safe.’

Jack nodded his understanding. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Good. Now I’m going to to pay a visit to your medical bay and see if Maise wants to grab dinner in my VIP quarters tonight. If I hear noises from next door, they’d better be good ones.’ He paused on his way to the door, regretting the throw-away comment. ‘Jack? Just… be careful with him.’

‘I will. The last thing I am going to do is hurt him.’

*

Jack looked everywhere until, in the end, he thought he should go show his face back on the command deck. He found John sitting in his chair.

‘Enjoying yourself?’

Elbow on the padded arm, chin in his hand, John nodded with a smile that sent a spark of heat from Jack’s heart to his groin. 

‘It did used to be my chair.’

‘This was never your chair. That one gone blown through two decks when that missile hit us just before the Apollo took out the weapons array.’ Jack leaned one elbow further along the arm, mirroring John, their faces inches apart. ‘That is my chair.’

‘And tomorrow it’ll be mine,’ a very authoritative female voice reminded them, from over by the flight controls. ‘So no squabbling.’

‘I could sit in your lap,’ John murmured, too softly for anyone else to hear it. 

Jack wished he had a great retort but his brain seemed to have rewired itself over night, and now everything about the man was like a jolt to his libido. 

‘Maybe I should hand over command early.’

‘Maybe you should.’

They walked in silence to John’s quarters, and Jack told himself that once there, they needed to talk before they did anything else. But John apparently had other ideas. As soon as the door closed, he was reaching for Jack’s hand.

‘You said before, on the way here, you didn’t want anything from me because I’d already given the universe everything I have.’ 

‘I meant it.’

‘What if I want the universe to give me something in return?’ The meaning, the heat, the hunger in John’s expression was impossible to misinterpret.

Jack let himself be pulled closer. ‘There wasn’t a single day back on Earth when I didn’t think about you.’

‘I thought about you too, although I didn’t know if I should have been.’

‘Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t know if I’d be standing on any toes. It had been such a long time, so much had changed and you’d been through hell. I’d have been an asshole to take advantage of that.’

‘And now?’

Jack leaned in, letting John meet him half way. It was strange at first, a long time since he’d kissed anyone. But there was a spark of familiarity in it which quickly lit a flame inside him. He took another step forward, wrapped his free hand around the back of John’s head and deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into John’s mouth, feeling him hum softly, tasting him, blood surging into his dick.

John responded, mouth moving restlessly against Jack’s, hugging a hand around his hip, fingers spreading in a possessive gesture, urging him closer. Jack could feel himself getting hard. He let go of John’s hand and slid curious fingers over his thigh.

John broke from the kiss and Jack suddenly thought maybe this was moving way too fast, but he stayed close. 

‘You’ll be lucky. I told you, I haven’t got it up in months.’

So not a no. Slowly, gently, Jack traced the inseam of John’s trousers up the inside of his thigh, taking his time, curling his fingers around the outline of his balls. He heard John’s sudden intake of breath, and with a firmer touch he moved his thumb along the length of a hardening erection.

‘I think you might have been doing it wrong,’ he murmured before kissing John’s bottom lip and sliding his tongue back into his mouth. He swallowed the moan, but he could feel John’s pulse racing. If this really was the first time since Mars.... 

He coaxed John over to the bed, feeling the tremors running through him. ‘Lie down.’ 

John dropped at an angle onto the covers, feet dangling off the side. With one hand, Jack got his trousers undone, pushed them down along with his underwear, eased the hem of his jumper up to the base of the IV and stopped. LeanIng down, he dropped featherlight kisses to the bruised, pale skin of his abdomen and stomach, avoiding the dressings still in place. He wrapped his hand carefully around John’s hard cock, brushing his fingers over silky skin, putting a little pressure on the turgid flesh below it, drawing a guttural cry from John’s throat. 

Jack had never been so aroused, dick straining against his zipper as he watched John’s head fall back, mouth open, face flushed. Looking from John’s face to his beautiful cock sliding through his hand, he fell just a little bit more in love. He increased the pressure, shifted his fingers, stroked down and back up, and was rewarded with a yell that seemed to come from deep within him.

‘Let go, Johnny.’

John’s expression settled somewhere between exquisite pleasure and agony as Jack set a steady rhythm. He made a sound that was definitely one of pain, tears blossoming in his eyes, and Jack understood.

‘It’s going to hurt this first time. Just let go, let it happen.’

As if following the instruction, John closed his eyes, arched his back and came in stuttered spurts while he clawed at the sheets with one hand and clung to Jack’s shoulder with the other.

Jack rode it out, loosening his grip, slowing his movements until he was just lightly stroking his thumb up and down the softening length. John shivered, jerked in his hand one final time before stilling, and Jack sat back to admire the view. He was gorgeous, lying there, pants open halfway down his thighs, white streaks drying on his stomach. His eyes were shining with unshed tears, and his expression was one of joy and relief.

‘You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,’ Jack breathed. John put out his hand, slipped it between Jack’s legs and he let him feel the wet patch there. ‘Watching you come like that... it’s been a while for me too.’

‘That was...’ John moved his head, amazement in his eyes. ‘I was starting to think I’d never....’

‘You just needed the right motivation.’ Jack slipped off the bed and went into the bathroom, fetching a wet cloth. Gently, he cleaned the sticky mess from John’s stomach and thighs, dropping kisses to his skin as he went, aware of John’s fingers combing through his hair. 

Happy John was clean, Jack returned to the bathroom and took a few minutes to clean himself up, letting what had just happened sink in. 

When he got back into the bedroom, John had pulled up his trousers but hadn’t fastened them. He still lay where he’d dropped, eyes following Jack until he was close enough that John could reach out, grab his hand, and pull him down beside him. 

Head propped up on one elbow, Jack gazed down at his old friend, seeing him not in a new light, he realised, but in a way he’d almost forgotten. 

‘Wasn’t sure you wanted this,’ John murmured, joy still clear on his face, reaching up to stroke long fingers through Jack’s hair again, to pull playfully at his beard. 

‘I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Or what you needed. I couldn’t quite work out where I fitted.’ 

‘Not everything fits neatly into a given space.’

‘The reason they want you to be president is because you say things like that.’

John laughed. ‘You know if I accept, you’d effectively be working for me.’

Jack smiled. ‘I know. Although… I was sorting of hoping for more than just working for you.’

‘I’m very glad to hear that.’

Closing the gap, he touched his lips to John’s forehead, to the tip of his nose, to his lips. ‘I love you, John Sheridan,’ he whispered. ‘I think, possibly, I always have. In some… weird and wonderful way.’

‘I love you too, Jack.’

Parting his lips beneath Jack’s, John coaxed his tongue into his mouth. Jack felt his cock twitch and lifted his head. ‘Jesus, you’re a dangerous weapon.’

‘Not Jesus. But if you want, you can call me Mr President.’

John slept undisturbed for hours, back against Jack’s chest, safe in the circle of his arms while Jack’s right hand went slowly numb. They were woken mid-afternoon by a ship wide call from the command deck, requesting the captain’s presence. Jack pulled the sheets up around John and kissed him before he left, promising he wouldn’t be long.

He popped into his own quarters to change his underwear and trousers, and went up to see what the fuss was about. 

‘General Ryan’s been trying to get a hold of you, Sir.’

‘Thanks. I’ll call him from my office.’

He took a moment to get his head back to where it needed to be for this particular conversation. ‘General Ryan. You received my report?’

‘I did. Thank you, Captain. There is a little confusion here. President Luchenko is asking about the video files that should have been stored along with the medical ones.’

Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. I sent everything we found.’

A wan smile touch the General’s lips. ‘Fine, I reassure her that she has everything there is. The explosions at the facility surprised a few people. We’re going to put it down to a coolant rupture, not that anyone will believe us. But conspiracists will have their mysteries.’

Jack hesitated. ‘Sir, did you know Captain Sheridan was the only prisoner to be interrogated at the facility?’

‘I didn’t. I was as surprised as you. Clarke really did have a hard-on for John. Lucky the son-of-a-bitch is dead, or I think there’d be a long queue to hurt the man. Badly. Right. Well. Thank you. Take care of yourself and enjoy your retirement. Although from what I hear, it’s more a change of career.’

‘Something like that, Sir.’

Ryan nodded. ‘Goodbye, Jack.’

*

After Ryan ended the call, Jack sat at his desk and stared at the blank screen, his words looping in his head, the ones about Clarke having a hard-on for John. 

By the time he got back to the VIP quarters, to sit on the bed and watch John sleeping peacefully - wrapped up in the sheets like a burrito - he was starting to realise the enormity of it all. Before coming to Mars, he’d seen it in increments; the lies on ISN, John’s physical injuries on his return to the Agamemnon, his fragile mental state, the dank despair of the facility, the brutality and violence on the vid. But slowly he was starting to piece it all together and the big picture was far bigger than he could ever have imagined. 

John had been set up from the moment he’d been assigned to Babylon 5 three years ago; a puppet who’d broken away from his masters and been punished for it. Yet… it wasn’t so simple. So much darkness had been at work in the background while John had been fighting the enemy on at least two fronts: Clarke, the Psi Cop Bester, even the Mars billionaire William Edgars had had him on his radar. John hadn’t stood a chance. How he’d held it all together, how was he dealing with everything he’d experienced, all the horrific things he’d been subjected to, Jack would never know. 

He swept his hand over John’s hair, the lightest of touches to his temple, the curve at the top of his ear. He wanted to promise to protect him, but he wasn’t sure he could, as much as he would die trying. ‘I’ll stand between you and harm,’ he murmured, hoping that was one he could keep.

John stirred and opened his eyes, rolling onto his back and smiling up at him. ‘Is everything all right?’

Jack nodded, which was a lie really, but it was one he thought John was probably used to hearing. ‘General Ryan wanted an update.’

‘Jack… why did he ask you to clear the facility, specifically?’

‘We go way back, the General and I.’ He said it with a wry smile. ‘And he likes you. After everything that happened, I think he wanted someone who would exercise some discretion when it came to what was sent back to Earth and what wasn’t, for your sake and theirs. Which is exactly what we did.’

John brushed one hand over his leg. ‘Thank you.’

‘I wasn’t about to let those recordings be seen by anyone else. What happened to you is for you to share, when and if you decide to.’

‘You’d… want to hear it?’

‘If you want to tell me.’

Nodding, John reached for his hand, tangling their fingers, and in response Jack stroked John’s shoulder, down his arm, over the sheet and the thick fabric of his jumper below it. He moved to his chest, mindful of the IV, uncertain of where was safe to touch, whether John wanted him doing so at all. He didn’t seem to mind, free hand coming up to stroke Jack’s beard. 

‘Love this,’ he murmured. ‘Looking forward to finding out how it feels against my balls.’

‘I was about to ask you if you’re okay with me touching you like this, and you’re thinking of my mouth on your dick.’

‘I am more than okay with you touching me. I want your hands on me, I want your mouth on me.’ He hesitated. ‘There are a couple of things I might balk at… I apologise in advance.’

‘Don’t you dare. The very last thing I ever want to do is hurt you or scare you. If there are things you’re never ready to do, whatever they are, I don’t care. As long as you talk to me, tell me what you want and don’t want. It sounds corny but I just want to be with you.’

‘I want your hands on me.’ John sat up, stroking the side of Jack’s throat, leaning in to kiss him. ‘You gave me the most intense orgasm of my life a few hours ago.’

‘I seriously doubt that’s true.’

‘It is. Before that, I didn’t know… if I could even get it up after Mars, let alone climax. And that was a scary thought, because I like sex, I love sex, and I want lots of it with you.’

Shifting to get closer, to get an arm around him, hands on him, Jack murmured, ‘You need to know… I’m not going to be happy sharing you with anyone. I mean…’

‘I know what you mean. I don’t want to be shared.’

‘You and Michael?’

‘It’s over. It’s been over a long time and it was never… this. I meant it when I said I love you. I won’t ever lie to you, I won’t ever hurt you and I trust you not to hurt me.’ One by one, he unfastened the clips on Jack’s shirt, getting at skin, touching, stroking, thumbing his nipples, dipping into his navel. ‘I want to see you,’ he murmured, and Jack dropped onto his back to unceremoniously wriggle free of his pants and boxers, surprised by John rising up to lean over him, one strong hand wrapping firmly around his erection, sapphire blue eyes gazing at him with a heady mix of arousal and adoration. ‘I remember this, how big you are.’

Jack really hoped he wasn’t blushing. ‘You make me fucking hard. You looked so sexy earlier. But please... don’t do anything you don’t want….’

Leaning down, John dropped what was somehow the sweetest kiss to the tip of Jack’s cock, before untangling himself from the sheet and sliding from the bed. He let his trousers drop, pushing his underwear down from his hips, kneeling next to Jack’s knees. Jack pushed himself up on his elbows, drinking in the sight. John was beautiful; smooth, firm chest, soft but flat belly, dark pink dick standing up, long and slightly curved. Of course there were scars, a couple still new, still healing, and dark patches of bone-deep bruising. He was slimmer than he used to be, but he wasn’t as painfully thin as he had been after his return from Mars. He was the most gorgeous man Jack had ever laid eyes on.

Sitting up, he curled his hand around the side of John’s throat, stroking the strong line of his jaw with his thumb, falling in love with the strangely shy smile that touched those full lips. He traced a lazy line down John’s body from his collar bone to his hip, moving across to draw his finger up along the underside of his erection. 

‘I think your dick likes me,’ he murmured with a smug smile, and John chuckled.

‘I think that might be an understatement.’

‘Do you want-‘ His question was pre-empted by John curling his hand against the back of Jack’s, wrapping it around himself.

‘Yes. I want you to touch me.’ Letting go, he put his own hand on Jack’s cock, exploring him, tracing the veins on it with his thumb, easing his foreskin back, ghosting over the glans and slit.

He couldn’t help the sound that the touch dragged from his throat. ‘You have to tell me if I do something you don’t want. You say stop and we stop.’

‘Jack….’

‘Promise me. Or I’ll let go.’

He answered in a rush, ‘I promise.’ Jack had to kiss him, stealing his breath in a gasp when John’s fingers did something wonderful to the base of his cock. ‘When was the last time you were with someone?’

‘A while. A year, maybe less.’ It was getting difficult to concentrate. ‘Nothing more than a one night stand.’

John’s hand tightened, a long upstroke, firm downstroke, starting to set a slow rhythm, and while Jack kept touching him, he wanted to get his mouth around John’s delicious cock before the day was out. 

‘I want to know what you like, learn how and where to touch you.’ Curious fingers caught on his nipples, pinching gently, making him moan, John smiling at the sound. He applied a little more pressure, getting it just right. Jack pushed into his touches, eyes shuttering closed, breath coming shallowing, faster. John was a fast learner and the little pinches, the sharp bites of his fingernails, the soothing brush of his thumbs were all going straight to his dick. He wasn’t going to last long, he could feel his orgasm building, huge, in his toes, his fingers, his balls. John’s hand on his cock was exquisite, and when he came it was with a loud cry, pushing up through John’s perfect, tight grip, spilling over his fingers. 

He surged forward to kiss him, feeling a sudden and overwhelming need to be close, as close as it was possible to be, holding back at the last moment but still getting John on his back on the bed, moving from his mouth to his dick, engulfing him in one swallow, taking him to the back of his throat. He was ready for John’s surprised reaction, for the lift of his hips, the hands on his head. He expected maybe some pressure, but instead John dropped his hands to the sheets either side of him, pushing up on his elbows to watch. Jack sucked on him, sweeping licks of his tongue, pulling up to wet his glans, tasting pre-come, feeling John shuddering under him. 

He stroked John’s balls gently, gauging his reaction, being very careful not to touch him anywhere further back. He seemed to like that, moaning softly, dropping back to the bed, expression one of bliss. Jack took him deep again, hollowed his cheeks to put pressure all along his shaft, before rising up, dipping the tip of his tongue into his slit. John yelled, came in his mouth, and it was obviously better for him this time around, less painful, more natural. Jack swallowed it all, licking him clean before letting his softening cock fall from between his lips. 

John’s fingers were back in his hair, expression one of amazement and happiness in equal measures. Shifting to lie beside him, Jack kissed him, cautious, welcoming John’s tongue into his mouth to taste himself. He was going to have to take his cues from John for a long time, he suspected, and he was more than okay with that. 

While they kissed, he pulled the sheet up over them, unsure what John needed now, but all he seemed to need was Jack, close to him, kissing, touching, however he could get him. He knew the worship in John’s eyes was going to go to his head, the way it had in the past. The way it had on Ganymede. 

'I love you, Johnny. That won’t ever change.’

Long fingers combed through his hair, scraped through his beard; loving, playful touches. He’d never imagined John would be like this, didn’t remember him being this way the last time they’d been together, but then again a lot had changed since then. They were both different people now.

‘I’ve never had sex aboard this ship before today,’ John murmured, and Jack was surprised. 

‘Seriously? All the time you’ve spent aboard….’

‘What you said about the dangers of getting involved within someone on the same ship was right. Nowhere to run if it goes wrong. Besides, I was happily married for the first couple of years.’

‘And then you were grieving.’ 

John nodded, and Jack could see the old sadness in his eyes for just a moment. ‘Anna really liked you.’

‘She only met me once, briefly.’

‘At our wedding.’ He smiled. ‘I remember. I had told her about Ganymede and she was curious. She was a good judge of character.’

Another kiss, prolonged, and then there was nothing in the blue eyes but contentment and love. 

‘Never thought I’d end up dating the president,’ Jack mused. 

‘Never thought I’d end up being the president.’

‘Are you sure it’s what you want?’

‘No. But I know… I can’t command B5 any longer, mentally or politically.’

‘And you think president of the ISA is going to be any easier?’

‘I do, actually. There’s a committee, lots of departments, as you know. I don’t have to shoulder the responsibility alone.’

‘I will actively make sure you’re not shouldering anything alone.’

John gazed at him, so much feeling in it that it took Jack’s breath away. ’My hero.’

He was going to say something flippant, the words were on his lips, but what came out in their place was, ‘I love you, Johnny,’ romantic sap that he was rapidly turning into.

*

Michael’s relief on seeing John walk through the docking bay doors was palpable. Worst case scenario, he’d imagined him being rolled in on a trolley, or supported by the doctor. But he looked fine, somehow more at peace with himself than when he’d left. Stephen was on one side of him, laughing with a woman Michael didn’t recognise, and Jack was on his other, in his space, looking like that’s where he belonged. 

Michael thought back to the moment just before the explosion in the docking bay, after the Agamemnon’s arrival; how John and Jack had looked just like a reunited couple…. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. He realised John had been trying to tell him for weeks. He almost turned and walked away. Almost. But instead, he met the small group as they came through ID checks, and when John saw him, he broke into a smile that Michael couldn’t help but love.

‘Mike.’ John hugged him, tight, and for a few seconds he hugged him back. When he let go, he glanced at Jack and saw the changes wrought between them written all over his face. He hated being right. ‘How have you been?’

‘You’re asking me? I’ve been fine. I’ve been here, with all the usual crazy. How have you been?’ 

‘Okay. I’m okay. It wasn’t easy. But I feel better having been back there.’

Looking at Jack, Michael asked, ‘You destroyed it?’

‘We destroyed everything. Stephen and I took metal pipes to a lot of it.’ Michael’s eyes widened and he glanced at Stephen, who’d caught up with them in time to hear the question. 

He nodded confirmation. ‘Unbelievably satisfying.’

Jack continued, ‘Then John detonated the twenty four highly explosive bombs we’d set and boom. There’s nothing left but rubble and dust.’

‘Best thing for it.’ He glanced at John. ‘Let me guess, you want a real shower after a week of sonics? And you,’ he turned to Jack, ‘want to know where you’re going to be living?’ He linked his hands behind his back, straightened and shifted back into his professional role. ‘Captain Maynard, Ivanova has managed to secure you quarters in Blue sector, two levels down from John. If you follow me, I’ll show you how to find it.’

Jack fell into step beside him. ‘It’s no longer captain. For now, it’s probably just Jack.’

‘And later?’

From behind them, John said, ‘ISA Director of Strategy.’ 

Michael had to give it to him, he was really good. Turning his head, he murmured, ‘Nice move,’ and glanced up to see the smile on Jack’s face. It wasn’t smug, it was just happy.

‘Sometimes you just have to take a chance, it either works out or it doesn’t.’

‘I want you in MedLab sooner rather than later,’ Stephen told John before he stepped off the transport tube on Blue 2, heading to check on Dr Hobbs before going to his own quarters. ‘I want to run a scan for my own peace of mind, and I need a blood sample.’

John nodded. ‘Okay. Give me an hour. Shower and a change of clothes and I’ll be with you.’

He looked a little surprised at how easy that had been. ‘Thank you.’

Next stop was John’s on Blue 3, and he looked a little nervous about leaving Jack alone with Garibaldi. Michael rolled his eyes and very carefully ushered him out. ‘He’s safe with me. Go. He’s on level 5, 15, almost directly below you.’ John glanced back and Michael thought maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe that wasn’t why he’d hesitated. Then he nodded, seemingly to something in his own head, and gave them a little wave as the tube doors closed.

‘If I kill you, they’ll never find the body.’

Jack’s bark of laughter surprised him. ‘I didn’t plan this. But I think… I might be completely, crazy in love with him.’

Michael stared. ‘When did that even happen? You dropped in for a few weeks three years ago, we don’t hear from you throughout the shadow war or the rebellion….’

‘Not true. John heard from me, after the shadow war, before Clarke got his sadistic hands on him.’ The tube stopped two levels down and Michael led the way along the corridor. ‘The Cortez was destroyed in an attack off Io, a couple of weeks before John was… arrested. Those of us who made it off the ship were picked up by the Agamemnon. Her captain had been killed in a firefight with EarthForce a few days before. They asked me to step in and I did. I put a call into General Ryan and a call into John. When I managed to speak to him, I could see what the stress and the strain was doing to him, how much it was all costing him. But he was determined to see it through.’ Michael stopped outside Jack’s new quarters. ‘Even when Clarke got hold of them, I never thought they’d go as far as they went. Maybe that was naive. I didn’t buy anything ISN broadcast but not once did I imagine they could be so fucking cruel….’ 

Michael pressed a hand to Jack’s chest. ’Breathe.’

Jack took a step back, rubbing his eyes with his hands. ‘Sorry. Jesus. That fucking place….’

‘That bad, huh?’

‘Horrific. Worse than I thought. John fell apart the way we knew he would, but he was the one to put himself back together. I don’t know where he found the strength but he floored us both. Stephen and I were the ones who completely lost it. Smashing up the control rooms was one of the most cathartic things I’ve ever done.’

‘I’m assuming there was a need to.’

‘We saw a vid, just a couple of seconds from the first day of his interrogation, but they were enough. The bodies we found… they were lucky they were already dead. Because John’s were the only records we found.’

Michael didn’t understand. ‘What?’

‘He’s the only one who was ever kept there. They constructed the place, the facade, just to mess with his head, way more than we realised. They made him believe they’d executed a member of rebellion, made him believe he was about to be executed. It was all so elaborate….’ Jack leaned back against the wall. ‘You know, when I look at John, I see the same batshit crazy lunatic I tried to command back on the Moon-Mars patrol, the same man who used to let off steam by dancing with drag queens and flirting with everyone. He’s just got the weight of the universe on his shoulders now, and a whole load of defences in place to try to protect himself from the damage it’s causing. Then I think about Clarke and his men looking at him and seeing some sort of monster and it drives me nuts.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Sorry. I think John was right about the shower. I just need some time.’

‘Stick your hand up here.’ Jack let the computer read his palm and finger prints, and the door swung open. ‘It’s keyed to you now. You want to give John access, he knows how to do that.’ 

‘Thanks. Sorry for… unloading.’

‘Sorry for threatening to kill you.’

Jack shrugged. ‘I probably deserve it. I’ll see you later.’

As the door closed behind him, Jack looked around at the quarters which would be his home for at least the next year, if someone didn’t blow it up. Compared even to the Cortez, it was a lot of space. He knew enough about the station to know Blue sector quarters were reserved for station command staff, so Susan must have called in a few favours to secure the place. There was a separate bedroom with a large bed, ample living area and kitchen, and best of all, the shower was real.

Ten seconds later, leaving a trail of clothes between the living room and the bathroom, he was naked under the hot water, letting it wash over him, trying to let go of the horrors of Mars. 

*

In the observation room close to C&C, Michael sat staring out at the destroyer hanging in space next to the station. 

‘Mike?’ He turned to see John standing a little way behind him, hair still damp from the shower. ‘Can I join you?’

‘You, of all people, don’t have to ask.’ As he sat down, Michael caught the scent of apple shampoo and took a deep breath in. John didn’t seem to notice. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in MedLab?’

‘I’ve been. I was only there a couple of minutes. Stephen’s got his scan results and more of my blood. He’s happy for the time being.’

‘Is it true that he’s been seeing the Agamemnon’s chief medical officer?’

John laughed softly. ‘Yeah, for the last two days. Maise Lockhart. She’s nice.’

‘And what happens what she leaves for wherever they’re going next?’

‘I have no idea. They say goodbye, I guess. Short lived flings can be as good as long term relationships.’ Michael kept his immediate thoughts to himself but John saw his expression. Sometimes he forgot that the captain saw more than most people realised. ‘I owe you an apology.’

‘No, you don’t, John. It wasn’t like I didn’t see it coming, and you don’t have to be sorry for wanting to be happy.’

‘Neither of us planned it. Well, I didn’t. I think Jack realised what was happening before I did. I think that’s why he took the job when Delenn offered it to him.’

‘And what about you? Have you made a decision?’

‘Yeah. I’m going to accept too. When I do, EarthGov will take the opportunity to regain control of B5. So I’m going to ask Susan if she wants to be my second. Vice President, I guess. And I want to ask you… if you’ll be my Head of Security.’

Michael stared at him. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Completely.’

‘Me?’

‘Who else can I trust to protect me?’

‘Literally anyone else? After everything I did-‘

‘Everything Bester did. And you know, you weren’t wrong, at the start. When I got back from Z’Ha’Dum, I acted like a total jerk for months, utterly egotistical. Well, Clarke definitely butchered that. If I’d just stopped for a moment, taken my head out of my ass, I’d have seen what was happening, seen that something was wrong, and I could have stopped it before it got out of hand. I’m more responsible for what happened to me than you are.’

‘Please don’t. Don’t take any more guilt on to those shoulders. Bester was responsible. You may have been acting like a jerk, but I was acting like an asshole. If not for Bester, we’d have probably ended up beating the crap out of each other, then talking it out as we lay bleeding and waiting for Stephen to patch us up and yell at us for being idiots.’

John put his hand on Michael’s arm. ‘You don’t have to say yes. If you want to stay with B5, I’ll talk to Liz, get her to talk Luchenko round. She owes me a favour.’

‘No. John, I accept your offer. I told you, I’m here for you as long as you want me to be.’ He looked down at John’s hand, stroked light fingers over the back of it. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? Jack said it was bad down in the facility.’

John nodded. ‘Yeah, it was.’ He took his hand back, pulled his sleeve down over his fingers. ‘It felt so damned good to blow the place to hell, to know it’s all gone, there’s nothing left out there that might come back to haunt me.’ Michael wondered if he was talking about the recordings but he didn’t mention them. ‘I don’t know if they’re right, if I really was the only one ever there. Either way, we did the right thing.’ Michael couldn’t disagree. ‘Listen, I need to find Susan before she finds out via the rumour mill.’ He got to his feet. ‘See you later? Stephen said I might actually be able to eat dinner this evening.’

‘That’s great news! Let me know when and where.’

‘I will. Thanks, Michael.’

Garibaldi watched him go, aching at not being able to do or say more, sad that it seemed something had ended, even if had ended months ago and he just hadn’t been aware of it. John deserved someone who would love him unreservedly, someone he could love in return without recriminations and bad memories. It was just another thing Bester was responsible for, and Michael felt a little regret at having killed the bastard already. 

*

It was like staff meetings of old, except this time it was the alliance asking, and John saying no.

‘There has to be a ceremony,’ Delenn was insisting, ‘it’s tradition and tradition is very important-‘

‘How can it be tradition? I’m the first president of a new alliance!’

‘Yes, which makes it even more important. You are creating the traditions that will live on after us all.’

Susan watched John pull on his sleeves. She felt for him, she really did, but he should have been expecting this.

‘Surely it’s up to me, being president?’

‘You’re not president yet,’ Delenn reminded him, gently. ‘And decisions such as these are for the council to make.’

‘So I’m what? Some sort of puppet?’

The silence that fell was like a stone. Susan glanced at Stephen, who looked at Michael. Between the three of them, she knew she was going to have to be the one to say it. She stood up.

‘Delenn? A word?’

The Minbari ambassador joined her in the far corner of the room. 

‘The last time he remembers being paraded in front of a large group of people, he recanted everything he’d done for us, for the rebellion and for Earth; he betrayed all of us.’

She looked confused. ‘But he did not do that.’

‘No, he didn’t. It never actually happened. But he has that memory; as fake as it is, it still has power. If he wants to make his own inauguration low-key, please respect that?’

There was horror and sadness in her eyes when she nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Thank you.’

Delenn swept back to the table, affection in her voice when she relented. ‘My apologies, John, you’re right. If you are to be president, we should do this the way you want.’ 

John glanced at Susan but nodded. ‘Thank you, Delenn. I’m happy for the ambassadors from all the member races to be there, obviously. I know they need to feel included, and they should be. They’re as responsible for what the ISA does as we are.’

‘G’Kar and I will make the arrangements with the others, and I’ll run everything past Susan before it’s agreed. Will… Mr Maynard be with you on the day?’ There was a smile in her voice, but his response obviously wasn’t what she was expecting, what any of them were expecting. 

‘No.’ All eyes fell on John, including Jack’s, sitting next to him at the table. He just looked surprised, maybe even amused. John was adamant. ‘I don’t want him involved.’

Delenn inclined her head in understanding, turning her attention to G’Kar, and Susan glanced at the two men, heard Jack ask casually,

‘Care to explain?’

‘I’m frightened for you.’ She caught her breath at the raw emotion behind his words. ‘I'm not going to set you up as another target for anyone who still wants to hurt me. I’ve lost so many people, too many. They took everyone I loved away from me, systematically, one by one, and I carried on fighting because eventually I didn’t have anything left to lose. But now there’s you, and I can’t lose you. I don’t think I’d survive that.’

She watched Jack reach across the table and put one hand on John’s arm, squeezing carefully, shifting his chair close and bringing their foreheads together. She missed whatever he said, quiet as it was and meant only for his partner, but the smile it put on John’s face made her chest tighten.

*

The quiet ceremony, attended only by ambassadors, a few friends, members of the station staff and the ISA, went off without a hitch. As John swore the oath of the president, Susan at his side, Stephen and Jack - seated in the back row - shared a smile.

‘Couldn’t talk him out of it, huh?’ Stephen murmured, and Jack regarded him with curiosity.

‘Have you ever managed to talk him out of anything he’s set his mind to?’ Stephen shook his head. ‘We may be sleeping together, but he’s not going to listen to me any more than he’ll listen to anyone else.’

‘It’s a little bit more than just sleeping together though, isn’t it?’ 

Up on the podium, as John was sworn in, Stephen saw him looking their way and knew his unguarded smile wasn’t meant for him. A glance at Jack saw him returning it, with a little wave of his fingers.

‘Are you going to take the Head of Medicine job?’ Jack asked after a few minutes, and Stephen turned to stare at him.

‘What?’

‘Oops. Sorry.’ He looked far from it. ’I thought they’d have mentioned it to you by now. When they do, look surprised.’

‘Head of Medicine for the ISA?’ Jack nodded. ‘Me?’ Another nod. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’re brilliant, because you need a change of scenery and a new challenge, because Maise has accepted a lead role in the medical department, and because John feels safer and happier with you around.’

It was a lot to take in, but he realised it wouldn’t be a difficult decision to make. A thought occurred, and he whispered, ‘Did you get him anything?’ He hoped Jack would just give him a look of bemusement, but he actually nodded. ‘What?’

‘I had a print made of that Egyptian blessing he’s stolen from me, had it framed. I gave it to him this morning. That’s why we were late.’ Stephen was confused for a moment, until Jack glanced at him momentarily, eyebrows raised, smiling like the Cheshire cat.

The guests left first, heading down to the party in the rotunda. Marcus, Jack and Stephen headed up to the stage, hanging back until the only people left were friends. 

‘Do we have to salute or something?’ Jack’s initial frown turned into something naughtier and Stephen slapped his arm. ‘Can’t you get your mind out of the gutter for ten minutes?’

He saw him looking at John with hunger and love in his eyes before shaking his head. ‘No.’ It made Stephen laugh. 

‘I need to stop in at MedLab before the party. See you there?’

‘Don’t be too long, or I’ll eat all those flaky cheese things you love. And don’t mention the job to anyone unless they mention it first.’

Michael relaxed. The ceremony was over and no one had tried to assassinate the new president in the first five minutes of his term. As far as he was concerned, that was a good start. He saw Jack approaching the stage and walked to where he and John would cross paths. He watched as they reached for one another, shared a hug and a brief kiss.

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I was thinking, does this make me First Lady?’

‘First Gentleman,’ Michael clarified. Not that they’d made their relationship known to anyone outside John’s immediate friends. He deftly changed the subject. ‘Did you tell Stephen about the job?’ Jack nodded, smug smile on his face. ‘Think he’ll take it?’

‘Oh, yes. Definitely.’ He glanced at John. ‘Don’t forget to actually ask him.’

‘I’m going to do it this afternoon.’

‘Luchenko is going to want your balls for break-‘ There was a loud whine, like a PPG powering up, and Michael yelled, ‘EVERYBODY DOWN!’

He threw himself at John out of sheer instinct and habit, caught him around the waist and toppled him just as an explosion blew out the ceiling above them. 

The sound of falling debris slowly eased then stopped. The dust in the air started to settle. Michael could feel John moving beneath him and once he was as sure as he could be that it was safe, he lifted his weight off, looking him up and down, searching for signs he’d been injured.

John opened his eyes, blinked in the dusty gloom. Michael saw Jack at about the same time John spotted him and swore under his breath.

‘Jack?’ John was trying to get up, trying to get to the man lying six feet away from them, utterly still, under a long metal beam that may or may not have been resting its weight of several tonnes across his back. ‘Jack!’

Michael winced at the utter despair in John’s cry, looked to see the anguish on his face. He’d managed to push himself up onto his elbows but suddenly and with a pained yelp, he went still.

Between him and the deck, there was a sliver of metal. It was protruding from John’s middle, just above the waistline of his blood-soaked trousers and Michael wasn’t sure it had been blown into him or if he’d landed on it. John seemed to stare at it for just a second before he looked up again. ‘Jack.’ Michael heard the tears in his voice. ‘Jack, please….’

‘John!!!’ Stephen’s call, into the wreckage of the room, was the most wonderful thing Michael could imagine at the moment.

‘We’re over here! John’s hurt and Jack’s...’ He couldn’t say it. It was the very last thing in the world he wanted to be true. He looked at John’s face, contorted in agony, and knew he was barely feeling the pain from his bleeding stomach. 

A few feet away there was a crack and a crash, and Michael could make out Stephen making his way over to them, a team of medics behind him, fanning out into the room. John was almost hysterical, risking slicing himself open further just to get over to where Jack lay. Stephen saw it all. The first thing he did was administer a sedative straight into John’s neck, knocking him out in a second. As he lost consciousness, Stephen stopped him from dropping forward and pushing the metal shard further into him. Checking it wasn’t somehow secured to the floor, and that the ground next to him was clear, he rolled John on to his back and started to stem the bleeding. To Michael, be said, ‘Are you hurt?’

‘I don’t think so. John was definitely the target.’

‘So what else is new? Check on Jack for me. Please tell me he’s alive.’

Moving crablike over to the other man, Michael pressed his fingers to the pulse point at the side of his throat.

Stephen hovered, watching the monitors, as John came out of the anaesthetic. He’d warned them he would be groggy, possibly confused, probably sick. But he saw the moment John opened his eyes and became aware of Jack sitting next to the bed. It took a second or two for the memories to return, but when they did the smile that crossed his pale face was perfect.

‘Welcome back, Swampy.’ Jack lifted John’s hand, the one he’d been holding for the last two hours, to his lips and kissed it, leaning over to stroke John’s hair. ‘Stephen says you owe him thirty credits rent.’

Stephen didn’t get the joke, but it amused John. His eyes roamed over Jack’s face. ‘I thought... ‘ 

‘Mild concussion, nothing worse than a headache.’ Michael had found a strong pulse when he’d checked. Fallen struts had halted the collapse of the metal beam an inch above Jack’s spine, he’d been knocked unconscious by the initial impact with the deck but otherwise he was okay. Lucky. So was John. The metal shard had missed vital organs but pierced his stomach. He’d lost a lot of blood and had even more stitches now, on the inside and out, but Stephen had reassured what felt like half the station that he would make a full recovery. 

Moving to the side of the bed Jack wasn’t sitting on, Stephen checked the readings on the monitors. ‘How are you feeling?’

With some effort, John turned his head to look at him, tearing his eyes from Jack. ‘Sore.’

‘Sick?’ A hesitation, and a nod. ‘There’s a bowl on this side. If you could aim for it, I’m sure Jack would be grateful.’ By the expression on John’s face, the joke didn’t quite land right. ‘Hey, the cocktail of chemicals in your system would make a Hurr drug lord envious. It’s not surprising that every time I add to it, your body rebells.’

‘Was it… deliberate?’

Jack squeezed his hand gently. ‘Yeah. Someone didn’t want you inaugurated. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they made a mistake with the timers on the explosives and missed the entire ceremony. That’s why I always opt for remote detonation.’ Stephen smacked his arm gently and he shut up. 

‘Marcus was hit by debris but he’s okay. We patched him up and Susan’s taken him back to his - possibly her - quarters. Apart from Jack’s concussion, the only other injuries are yours. Obviously.’

‘Is Michael....?’

‘He turned the rubble into smaller bits of rubble and found something that he and Zack seemed to think could lead them to whoever made the devices. They’re busy bringing him to ground. He knows you’re okay.’

‘I think he might have saved my life. Again.’

‘That is why he’s your Head of Security.’ Stephen thought about the job offer that would be coming and felt a mix of relief, gratitude and contentment. ‘Get some rest. You’re going to be sore for a time, but you know that.’

He left them alone.

‘Sooner we get you off this batshit crazy station and onto Minbar the better,’ Jack murmured. 

‘Maybe this was a mistake.’

Jack squeezed his hand, teasing. ‘This?’

‘No.’ John tried to lift his head. 

‘Ah, you mean the whole being President of the universe thing.’

‘It’s not the universe. It’s the ISA.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I think it’s too late. I’m fairly sure you said ‘yes’ in all the right places.’

‘Why didn’t you talk me out of it?’

‘You’re rather overestimating my powers of persuasion. This is you, John. Everyone here knows you weren’t going to be swayed once you’d made the decision. Besides, I actually think it’s safer for you than captain of this place.’

‘I haven’t been president five minutes and someone’s already tried to kill us.’

‘What’s this ‘us’ business?’ John smiled, weariness clear in his eyes. ‘It’s okay. You can sleep. I’ll be here.’

’Aren’t you… sick of sitting at my bedside?’

‘Well, obviously I’d rather be in bed with you….’ He watched John’s eyes close, his short battle trying to keep them open, and reached up to stroke his hair. ‘You scare the shit out of me. Waking here in MedLab, not knowing if you were alive or dead…. I realised how incredibly important you’ve become to me. I knew what I was getting into with you, knew how dangerous your life is, how high the threat to it is. I don’t think I quite understood what that meant.’ He didn’t know if John was hearing him or not, and it didn’t matter. He just felt that some of this stuff should be said. ‘You know me. I’m not exactly the sappy romantic type, but like I told Michael, I do seem to have fallen in love with you. So if you could make some sort of effort to stay alive long enough for us to explore that, I think it would be incredible. I think we will be incredible.’ He felt John squeeze his hand, just slightly, and shut up for a while to let him sleep.

*

Stephen released them the following day, with strict orders for John to rest and not to even think about ISA matters for another two days. John deified that order immediately by asking him if he’d consider the position of ISA’s Head of Medicine. Stephen said he’d give it some thought, but they both knew he was going to say yes. 

‘It’s a selfish appointment,’ John confessed. ‘Not you don’t have the experience or qualifications, because you do. You’re more than qualified and I know you’ll do a brilliant job….’

‘It’s okay, John. I understand. I know everything that’s happened and its effect on you, I’ve helped bring you through it. I get you probably don’t want anyone else reading through your records, trying to treat you as when you need it without seeing the bigger picture.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You can thank me by looking after yourself, or at least letting Jack do so.’

‘Deal.’

John managed twenty four hours, lying on his couch, catching up on baseball games he’d missed over the years, periodically falling asleep thanks to the pain meds he’d been prescribed, only to wake up and found he’d missed most of the game. 

Delenn checked in on him and refused to discuss business, pointing out he was supposed to be resting. Susan and Marcus did the same, him hobbling in on crutches. They sat and drank tea and indulged in a little mutual feeling sorry for themselves. Susan left them to it while she attended the first ISA council meeting that John should have been chairing. He tried, but she resolutely refused to let him accompany her, threatening to tell Stephen if he showed up.

After a check up the next day, and some serious begging, Stephen reluctantly agreed he could take up a few of his presidential duties. 

‘You pull these stitches, particularly the ones on the inside, and you’ll know about it, so be careful.’

‘I will, you have my word.’

‘Where’s Jack?’

‘Working. Like I should be.’

‘Okay, okay. You can go. I want to see you in two days. If you experience any pain….’

‘Come back. I know.’ He pulled his sweater down to cover the dressing and eased himself off the examination bed.

‘I know scars are supposed to be sexy, but you’re pushing your luck.’

’In my defence, I didn’t ask to be blown up. Twice.’ Stephen could see him playing with the sleeve of his jumper but he didn’t pull on it, and he could only hope that was sign of progress.

‘Are you still seeing Dr Osaka?’

‘Twice a week. We’ve made it as far back as my suicide mission to Z’Ha’Dum.’

Stephen smiled. ‘I bet she’s loving that one.’

‘I don’t think she believed me at first. I think she’s amazed I’m still breathing.’

‘Her and me both. Now get out of here before your slightly less insane half comes searching for you.’

*

Annoyingly, Jack insisted they spent some nights in their own quarters. He had this crazy idea that they both needed their sleep and if they spent every night together, that’s not what would happen. He was right, of course, to a point. Although John wouldn’t admit he slept better when Jack was there with him.

After five such nights, however, Jack’s resolved cracked. He always wanted to sleep with John’s naked body wrapped around him like a limpet, arms and legs pinning him to the bed, soft greying hair tickling his chest, the weight of his quiescent cock resting against his hip. 

He just wasn’t sure how John felt about it until a couple of weeks after his inauguration, after the explosion which could have killed them both, when he turned on Jack after dinner and slowly, deliberately started to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. He went one by one, sliding the backs of his fingers over lightly haired skin as it was revealed.

‘Stay,’ was all he said, and Jack didn’t need persuading. John pushed the shirt from his shoulders and he let it slide down his arms and over his hands, stepping forward to close the gap between them, tilting his head into the kiss. They somehow undressed one another, hands and mouths exploring what they could as they stumbled their way into the bedroom and onto the bed, kneeling face to face. 

‘I want you to do what you did on Ganymede.’

‘No.’ Jack shook his head and John’s face fell. ‘Hey.’ He stroked his hands over bare shoulders. ‘What we did on Ganymede was fuck, you know that as well as I do. I’ll make love to you, if and when you’re ready, and I would love for you to be inside me. But this is far from what we were back then.’

‘So make love to me.’

He let his hands run down over John’s back, following the curve of his spine, skimming fingertips along the crack of his ass. John shivered slightly, and Jack stroked his palm over one cheek, not applying any pressure.

‘I don’t think you’re ready for this.’

‘I want it. I want you. Please, Jack. I need to feel you inside me, because right now when I think about it, I can still feel them… doing what they did and it fucking hurt. I want to feel you. I want it to feel good because I know it did, on Ganymede, I know it was incredible.’

Reluctantly, Jack relented. ‘Okay. But you say stop, and we stop, no matter what.’ John nodded. ‘Promise me.’

‘I promise.’ He kissed the hollow of Jack’s neck, scraping his teeth gently over the collar bone, sending shivers along Jack’s spine and blood into his dick. 

‘You’re going to be the death of me.’ he leaned back, John raised his head and he pressed his tongue into his mouth. The depth of his feelings for this man were a constant surprise. He felt a little like he’d waited his whole life for this. 

It was John who coaxed Jack to lie down, face to face, still kissing. He hooked one leg over Jack’s thigh, hardening cocks sliding together. Jack couldn’t stop the moan that the sensation dragged from his throat. He felt deft fingers catch on his nipples, scratch over the hairs on his chest, moving slowly down over his stomach. Reaching between them he took a hold of John’s hand, breaking the kiss, staring into blue eyes, pupils blown. ‘Why is sex with you so fucking good?’

John laughed. ‘Because you love me. I love you. Can’t believe you’ve never been in love before.’

Neither could Jack, quite frankly, although he was beginning to suspect his heart and soul had been waiting for this. Lacing his fingers through John’s, he shifted forwards, trapping their hands between them, nipping his bottom lip, inviting John’s tongue into his mouth. The silky slide of their erections against one another was going to be enough to send Jack spiralling into an orgasm he soon wouldn’t have the willpower to stop. 

‘Are you still sure?’

John nodded, and Jack watched him reach back and slide open a drawer next to the bed, lifting out a tube and putting it into Jack's hand.

Deftly popping the cap off, he squeezed gel on to his fingers and dropped the tube to the bed. John’s leg hooked over his thigh meant he was able to slide his fingers easily to the back of his balls, firm strokes along his perineum, all the time watching his face for any signs of discomfort. His eyes were closed, breathing shallow, but it was pleasure and not pain on his features and his dick was still hard alongside Jack’s. He slid a single fingertip over the firm, puckered hole and John flinched, hand tightening momentarily on his shoulder before he relaxed again.

‘Okay?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Open your eyes. I want you to watch, so you know it’s me.’ John did as he asked, looked directly at him.

‘Please.’

He pressed the tip of his finger against the tight muscle until it gave way and he slipped inside. He paused, dropped a kiss to John’s lips, and pushed in steadily to his knuckle. He could feel John tense against him, around him. 

‘Relax. Breathe. It’s just me, just my finger.’

By increments, the tension melted away. Jack wasn’t sure they were going to get further than this tonight, but it didn’t matter. John, though, had different ideas. ‘Another.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’

Jack added his index finger to his middle one, pressing both in together, stretching the muscle a little. John moaned softly and shifted, trying to take more. 

‘Just take it slowly.’ 

‘Jack….’

‘I know.’ He did know. He was rock hard, cock aching. It wanted to be where his fingers were. 

Pulling out an inch, he pressed back inside, sliding deeper, separating his two fingers just a little. John made a sound in the back of his throat, fingers sinking into Jack’s skin, pushing his ass back in encouragement. 

‘Please, Jack….’

‘Not to boast, John, but I’m a lot bigger than a couple of fingers.’

‘I don’t care. Do it.’

Jack withdrew and reached for the lube. Ideally he would have kept John facing him, but the injury to his stomach meant the position would be too painful. 

‘Turn over.’ 

With John’s back against his chest, head pillowed on Jack’s arm, he spread the lube on his dick and pushed John’s leg forward, bent at the knee. It was a slightly awkward position, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get as deep as he would with John on his stomach, but it was intimate, and the last thing he wanted was him face down. He dropped little kisses to the slender shoulder, to every inch of skin he could reach, stroking his hand over John’s cock and balls, waiting until he was fully hard again before lining up the blunt head of his cock with the entrance to John’s body and pushing. It was going to hurt, he was ready for the first grunt of pain, and he paused half an inch inside.

‘Breathe. Just breathe.’ He kissed the back of John’s neck, the side of his throat, tasting the salty sweat beading on his skin, waiting for John’s body to relax around him. Only then did he push further, just a couple of inches before stopping again, letting him get used to the stretch, to the strange fullness. 

‘Jack….’ His name spoken in a shuddering breath out, and he pressed in all the way. He touched his forehead to John’s back and did some controlled breathing himself, stopping the orgasm that would otherwise have overwhelmed him. 

The position meant he could only make small movements, sliding back and forth, in and out, a couple of inches either way but they were enough. John felt fantastic around him, tight and hot, foreskin dragging on his insides in a way that felt obscene and sexy as hell. Reaching around, he wrapped his hand around John’s erection and tried to set a matching rhythm with the movement of his own body. Shifting his hips, he changed the angle slightly and knew when he’d found John's prostate because he gave a triumphant cry and pushed back against him, then forward through his hand. He muttered something unintelligible and Jack felt fingers brush over his, over the top of John’s own dick. He couldn’t hold it back; his orgasm hit like a tsunami and he buried himself deep in John’s ass, feeling himself come in the tight heat. A second later, hot semen coated his fingers and John shuddered against him.

It was a few more seconds before he could speak. ‘Fuck. That was….’ Suddenly scared, he pulled all the way out as gently as he could and eased John over, just enough so he could see the expression on his face. Relief flooded him when he saw the blissed out smile, the worship in those beautiful blues. His spent cock pulsed again. ‘Jesus…. Are you okay?’

John reached for him, pulled his head down and kissed him hard. ‘I’m… that was... wonderful, you’re wonderful.’

Resting forehead to forehead, Jack took a couple of deep breaths. ‘I love you so much it scares me to death.’

He felt John’s fingers comb through his hair. ‘I love you too. And we’re going to be fine.’

He cleaned them both up and quickly checked they hadn’t caused any of John’s stitches to open before flopping onto his back on the bed. John curled up around him in the exact way Jack loved. With some effort, he got the comforter up over them both and closed his eyes, thinking this was exactly where he wanted and needed to be.

*

Until the ISA facilities on Minbar were completed, they transformed the war room on B5 into a temporary base of operations, the ISA offices. Symbols of all the member races lined the walls, a larger table was installed so that each of the officials assigned to the council could have a seat if they so wished. Weekly meetings were scheduled, projects were discussed and kicked off. Mostly it was politics and paperwork. 

Stephen was like a kid in a candy store; the potential for new breakthroughs, now he had access to the research and resources of so many worlds, was enormous. 

Michael’s day to day issues were not all that different from his role as chief of station security. John Sheridan was still his primary focus and keeping him safe remained a full time job, although now he was less prone to wandering off for a walk on the hull or a solo flight in a Starfury. 

Jack spent his varied days trying to figure out solutions for wildly different problems, depending on who he was working with. He was enjoying it. He kept an eye on John, watching out for signs of stress or, on the other extreme, boredom setting in. 

The night terrors very slowly became fewer and further between, but when John did have them, they left him terrified, unable and unwilling to go back to sleep. 

He dreamt of blinding explosions, his own deafening screams.

He dreamt of sitting, inert, not able to move, men in black crowding in, pouring acid down his throat, tearing at his clothes as his body burnt from the inside out, the liquid searing his dick as it leaked from him.

He dreamt of being pinned to a hard floor, metal restraints holding him in place, tight chains pulling across his naked body, flaying flesh while the laughter of men rang in his ears, their hands on him, in him. 

Struggling to wake him, seeing the terror in his eyes when he finally opened them, Jack knew he needed to get him to talk about what he was seeing, what he was reliving and what he was imagining when he went to sleep. So John told him; held in the safe circle of Jack’s arms, gentle fingers combing through his hair. He told him every detail. It took time. 

It was easier if he put his head on Jack’s chest and listened to his heartbeat, stared into the semi-darkness of his quarters while he talked, so he couldn’t see the emotion in Jack's eyes. Face to face, it was almost impossible, but wrapped up in each other, Jack could feel John’s tears on his skin and know it was at least the start of him healing.


End file.
